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ʿAlī b. Mahziyār, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ahwāzī, was a Shiʿi jurist and traditionist of the first half of the 3rd/9th century. Reports treating his life between the years 220–229/835–844 are extant (al-Ṣaffār, 357; al-Kashshī, 549; al-Kulaynī, 1/384; al-Najāshī, 145). He may have died in the following decade. His family was originally from the village of Dawraq in Khūzistān (al-Najāshī, 253) or Hindikān (apparently the same place referred to as Hindījān in modern Khūzistān) in Fārs (al-Kashshī, 548), but he became known as al-Ahwāzī after moving to that city (al-Kashshī, 548; al-Ṭūsī, al-Ri…

Al-Aʿmash, Abū Muḥammad Sulaymān b. Mihrān al-Asadī (60–148/680–765), was a prominent Kūfan traditionist of Persian extraction. Al-Aʿmash’s family came from Dabāśwand (Danbāwand, Damāwand) in Ṭabaristān. According to some reports he was born in Dabāwand, while others have stated that his father migrated to Iraq and that al-Aʿmash was born in Kūfa. His father, Mihrān, is said to have been taken prisoner following the battles in the north of Persia: after his arrival in Iraq, he was granted freedom by one of the …

ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Azdī, Abū Muḥammad b. Saʿīd b. ʿAlī (332–409/944–1018), an Egyptian muḥaddith (traditionist). He was born in Egypt where he spent important periods of his life. When he was six years old he lost his father, who was a man of learning (al-Ḥabbāl, 54, 89; Ibn Mākūlā, 3/85). He began learning ḥadīths early in life, and one of his first masters was ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad al-Samarqandī (d. 345/956) (for further information on the latter, see al-Dhahabī, 15/422). Amongst his masters and teachers one can also name the following: Abū al-Ḥasa…

Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Sulaymān b. al-Ashʿath b. Isḥāq b. Bashīr b. Shaddād b. ʿAmr b. ʿImrān al-Azdī (202–275/817–888), was a well-known traditionist and compiler of the ḥadīth collection known as Sunan Abī Dāwūd, the third of the six canonical books of ḥadīth ( al-Ṣiḥāḥ al-sitta). The title ‘al-Sijistānī’, occasionally ‘al-Sijzī’ (cf. Abū ʿAwāna, 1/191), which usually comes after his kunya, indicates that he came from Sīstān. The author of Tārīkh-i Sīstān (p. 19) refers to him as one of the outstanding scholars of the region, and there is no evidence for the as…

al-Bazanṭī, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Abī Naṣr (152–221/769–836), an early Kūfan Imāmī scholar, a companion of Mūsā al-Kāẓim, ʿAlī al-Riḍā, and Muḥammad al-Jawād al-Taqī, respectively 7th, 8th and 9th in the line of Twelver Shiʿi Imams.It is reported that his family were clients of the al-Sakūn tribe, and it seems that they were held in high regard by the Imāmīs of Kūfa, including prominent individuals such as al-Bazanṭī’s cousin Ismāʿīl b. Mihrān (al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 43; idem, al-Ghayba, 71; al-Najāshī, 26, 75, 290; cf. al-Kashshī, 589).According to extant rijālī sources, al…

Al-Bukhārī and the Sciences of Ḥadīth and RijālThere is no doubt that professionally al-Bukhārī has always been known as a traditionist ( muḥaddith) and so any activity outside the field of ḥadīth was an avocation for him. Although all the biographical books of the ahl al-sunna mention al-Bukhārī’s name and acknowledge his major contribution to the field, it is very difficult to illustrate his high standing only through the words of a few references. Perhaps the most eloquent account belongs to one of his teachers, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, who say…

al-Bāṭirqānī, Abū Bakr b. Faḍl b. Muḥammad (372–460/982–1068), was a Qurʾān reader ( qāriʾ ) and traditionist ( muḥaddith) from Iṣfahān. His nisba is from Bāṭirqān, a district near Iṣfahān’s Ḥasanābād gate, which is now within the city limits. The first unambiguous report regarding his education goes back to the year 387/997, when he would have been fifteen years old; it states that he studied Qurʾān recitation in Iṣfahān under the talented reciter Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Kisāʾī (see al-Dhahabī, Maʿrifa, 1/342; Ibn al-Jazarī, 1/96, cf. 2/173). He also completed his edu…

al-Ḥusayn b. Saʿīd al-Ahwāzī, Abū Muḥammad, was an influential Imāmī Shiʿi traditionist and jurist who was active in the first half of the 3rd/9th century. Al-Ḥusayn came from a Persian family, and his ancestors had been clients ( mawālī) of the fourth Shiʿi Imam, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (d. 95/713; see al-Barqī, 54; al-Kashshī, 551–552; al-Najāshī, 58). Sources record him as being a companion of the eighth, ninth and tenth Imams: ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 202/818), Muḥammad al-Jawād (d. 220/835), and ʿAlī al-Hādī (d. 254/868; al-Barqī, 54; al-Ṭūsī, Rijāl, 372, 399, 412). Al-Ḥusa…

He was born into a family of sayyids (descendants of the Prophet) in Khurāshā, a village near the town of Bujnūrd in the Iranian province of Khurāsān. Through his father, Āqā Buzurg, his lineage can be traced back to Ibrāhīm al-Mujāb, a grandson of Mūsā b. Jaʿfar al-Kāẓim, the seventh in the line of the Ithnā ʿAsharī Shiʿi imams, and his mother was also descended from the same imam (see Bujnūrdī, Muḥammad, ‘Sharḥ’, 1; Burūjirdī, 7).At the age of fourteen, after completing his preliminary studies in Bujnūrd, he moved to Mashhad to continue his training. There he soon jo…

Abū al-Ṣalāḥ al-Ḥalabī, al-Taqī b. Najm b. ʿUbayd Allāh (374–447/984–1055), was a Shiʿi faqīh (jurist) and mutakallim (theologian) from al-Shām. He was born in Aleppo (Ḥalab) and he seems to have received his education there. According to Ibn Abī Ṭayy, he made three journeys to Iraq and studied under the scholars of that land. However, since he makes no mention of the presence of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, one may conclude that his travels took place after al-Shaykh al-Mufīd's death in 413/1022 (see al-Dhahabī, 11/404). According to al-Ṭūsī ( Rijāl, 457) Abū al-Ṣalāḥ went to Baghdad to s…

Abū Fudayk, ʿAbd Allāh b. Thawr b. Salama (d. 73/692) was one of the leaders of the Najadāt Khārijīs (seceders). He was from the Banū Qays b. Thaʿlaba, a branch of the larger tribe of Bakr b. Wāʾil (al-Ṭabarī, 6/174), a considerable number of whom had strong Khārijī tendencies. He grew up in the Khārijī circles of Baṣra and accompanied their leaders to Mecca in 64/683–684 when they went to help ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr (al-Ṭabarī, 5/566; cf. al-Mubarrad, 7/240). After the Khārijīs separated from Ibn al-Zubayr, and w…

Abū Baṣīr, the common title of two narrators of ḥadīth in the Imāmī Shiʿi tradition, both of whom were amongst the disciples of the Shiʿi Imams Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. Their names were Yaḥyā b. Abī al-Qāsim al-Asadī and Layth b. al-Bakhtarī al-Murādī. The name of Abū Baṣīr appears in the chains of narrators ( isnād, pl. asānīd) of many Shiʿi narrations without any other distinguishing title or name; only through circumstantial evidence can one guess the actual identity of the narrator. There are very few chains in which the identity of A…

Abū Ghānim al-Khurāsānī, Bishr b. Ghānim, was an Ibāḍī jurist ( faqīh) of the second half of the 2nd/8th century, who compiled the first comprehensive work on Ibāḍī jurisprudence ( fiqh). One of the Ibāḍiyya of Khurāsān, he went to Baṣra, or perhaps Mecca, to study during the period when al-Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb was leader of the Ibāḍīs and some time after the death of Abū ʿUbayda Muslim b. Abī Karīma (d. before 158/775), under whom his teachers had studied. Among the jurists whose views are discussed by Abū Ghānim in his book al-Mudawwana are al-Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb al-Baṣrī, Maḥbūb b. Raḥīl al-ʿAb…

Abū al-Faḍl al-Tamīmī, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥārith b. Asad (341–410/952–1020), a Ḥanbalī scholar. He was born into a learned family in Baghdad: his grandfather, al-Ḥārith, had been a traditionist, and his father was one of the leading Ḥanbalīs in Baghdad (see al-Khaṭīb, 10/461; for further details regarding his genealogy, see al-Maqqarī, 3/121). In Baghdad, he learnt the Islamic sciences from his father and from scholars of different tendencies, encompassing both extremist Ḥanbalīs on the one hand and Shiʿi scholars on the other. He …

ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī, Taqī al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. ʿAlī (c. 541–600/1146–1204), was a Ḥanbalī muḥaddith (traditionist) and faqīh (jurist). He was born in Jammāʿīl near Nablus (al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 21/444), but moved with his family to Damascus when very young, where he was brought up and where he spent the rest of his life. As was the custom with muḥaddithūn, after starting his study of ḥadīths in Damascus, ʿAbd al-Ghanī undertook a series of journeys to expand his learning, and left Damascus on many occasions in order to hear ḥadīths. His first trip to Baghdad was i…

Al-Awzāʿī, Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAmr (88–2 Ṣafar 157/706–22 December 774), a Syrian jurist, muḥaddith and founder of a school of jurisprudence which had followers in Syria and al-Andalus until the 4th/10th century. Some sources say that his family were either Yemenis captured during the Muslim wars of conquest ( al-futūḥāt; al-Masʿūdī, 3/304) or from Sindh (al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 7/109); however the preferred opinion is that he belonged to the Sībān clan of the Ḥimyar tribe. His nisba, al-Awzāʿī, stems from his residence in al-Awzāʿ, a suburb of Damascus (see al-Bukhār…

Abū Zakariyyā al-Janāwunī, Yaḥyā b. al-Khayr b. Tūzīn, was an Ibāḍī jurist from the Jabal Nafūsa (Nefousa), who lived in the 6th/12th century. He was a native of Ijnāwun (which lay east of Jabal Nafūsa) and was born into a learned family. His grandfather, Abū al-Khayr Tūzīn al-Janāwunī, was himself a renowned scholar who was blessed at birth by Abū al-Khayr Tūzīn al-Zawāghī, and for this reason Yaḥyā was named after him (al-Shammākhī, 2/28). Since al-Zawāghī lived during the reign of the Zīrid al-…

Ashʿarīs, the dissemination of Ashʿarī theology. The 2nd–3rd/8th–9th centuries mark a crucial period in the history of the theological thought of Sunni Islam, during which a significant portion of its subject matter came to be formed and elaborated. The Sunni theologians of this period can be divided into two categories as regards their general approach to the discipline. Firstly, the Muʿtazilīs and other related schools of thought, who were responsible for propagating ʿilm al-kalām and, with their predilection for rationalism, for producing a methodical and analytic…

Badakhshān (also archaically referred to as Badhakhshān and Balakhshān), is a mountain region on the Pāmīr plateau and divided between Tajikstan and Afghanistan. Situated astride the legendary Silk Road, the historic region of Badakhshān is a unique geographic and cultural area also known as Pāmīr—the name of the mountain chain which connects to the Hindu Kush range and the Himalayas (Koen, 38). The Āmū Daryā (river Oxus) runs through the historic province of Badakhshān, although upstream from the Kokcha confluence, it is called the river Panj (Desio, 1).Afghan BadakhshānAfghanista…

ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf, Abū al-Ḥārith (d. 45 before hijra/578), was the paternal grandfather of the Prophet Muḥammad. Some sources indicate that his original name, Shayba, was embellished with the laqab or title Aḥmad (‘most praised’) (Ibn Hishām, 1/89, 209; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, 1/28), while others report that his name was ʿĀmir, or that ʿĀmir was a second name in addition to Shayba (see Ibn Bābawayh, al-Amālī, 700; idem, al-Khiṣāl, 453). While passing through Yathrib (Medina) on one of his trading journeys to Syria, Shayba's father, Hāshim b. ʿAbd Ma…