al-Dārimī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Tamīmī al-Samarqandī (181–255/797–869), a ḥadīth scholar and jurist of Persian origin, as well as the author of a sunan, one of the canonical Sunni ḥadīth collections. As his nisba ‘al-Dārimī’ indicates, he was a client of the Banū Dārim b. Mālik and his family’s roots were in Samarqand (al-Samʿānī, 2/441; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 12/224). Al-Dārimī writes that he was born in the year that the famous muḥaddith and scholar Ibn Mubārak died, i.e. in 181/797 (al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 12/228).

Despite his fame, not much is known about his…