Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak

Abu Abd al-Rahman Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak al-Marwazi, client of the Banu Hanzala. Al-Shirazi says that he studied jurisprudence with Sufyan and Malik, and died at Hit, a town on the Euphrates near al-Anbar, in "around eighty and a hundred". ¹ The Sufyan is not named in the text; for Malik see Malik ibn Anas.

Al-Shirazi quotes Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi: "The imams are four: Sufyan al-Thawri, Malik, Hammad ibn Zayd and Ibn al-Mubarak." ¹

The date of death differs: al-Shirazi says "around eighty and a hundred", and the editor's note on Ibn Qutayba makes it 181 AH. ¹

Al-Dhahabi describes him as the imam, shaykh al-Islam, scholar of his age and commander of the devout in his time: Abu 'Abd al-Rahman al-Hanzali by clientage, the Turkic then the Marwazi, the memoriser and frontier fighter, whose mother was Khwarazmian; he was born in 118 AH. ²

He sought knowledge at twenty. The first shaykh he met was al-Rabi' ibn Anas of Khurasan, whom he reached in prison by a ruse and heard some forty hadiths from; he set out travelling in 141 AH, learned from the last Followers, and kept travelling until his death — seeking knowledge, campaigning, trading, spending on his brothers and equipping them for the pilgrimage. ²

He heard Sulayman al-Taymi, 'Asim al-Ahwal, Humayd al-Tawil, Hisham ibn 'Urwa, al-Jurayri, Isma'il ibn Abi Khalid, 'Abdallah ibn 'Awn, Musa ibn 'Uqba, al-Awza'i, Abu Hanifa, Ibn Jurayj, Ma'mar, al-Thawri, Shu'ba, Ibn Abi Dhi'b, Malik, al-Layth, Ibn Lahya, Hushaym, Isma'il ibn 'Ayyash, Ibn 'Uyayna and a multitude, and composed useful works; for al-Dhahabi his hadith is proof by consensus, and it stands in the musnads and the canonical collections. ²

Tareq al-Suwaidan dedicates two episodes to Ibn al-Mubarak and declares a personal attachment to him since his own youth ^{3 4}. He presents him as the model of balance: 'commander of the faithful in hadith' — he says one who reaches that rank memorises over seven hundred thousand hadiths, sound and weak alike (needs_source) — ascetic, devout, jurist, mujahid and shaykh of Islam, of whom they said 'he rivalled the Companions in deeds, surpassed only by their companionship of the Prophet ﷺ and their jihad with him' ^{5 6}. He tells of his father: a freedman guarding an orchard in Khurasan who gave a third of his wage in alms and never tasted its fruit because his master had not permitted him — seeing in his scrupulousness the root of his son's righteousness ^{7 8 9}. He uses him to denounce racial discrimination in the ummah — a mawla who mastered Arabic until he became among its greatest poets — citing that no Arab has merit over a non-Arab except by piety ^{10 11}. Of his life: born in 118 AH; he detected four thousand fabricated hadiths slipped among the sound ones in three days; and Sufyan al-Thawri's correction 'he is the scholar of the people of the East and the West' when someone called him 'the scholar of the people of the East' ^{12 13 14}. Of his generosity: he would gather his companions' hajj funds labelled with each owner's name, spend on them from his own money, and return the sums on their return, saying God had blessed their expenditure; he gave Sufyan al-Thawri ten thousand dirhams yearly; and he excused his trading — 'were it not for you I would not have traded' — so as to spend on the scholars ^{15 16}. The story of Kufa: he saw a girl picking a dead crow from a rubbish heap during a famine, wept, ordered the caravan to divide all its money among the people of Kufa and turned back without performing hajj — then heard in a dream 'an accepted hajj, a thanked striving, a forgiven sin' (transmitted with his caveat on dreams) ^{17 18 19}. And the story of al-Raqqa: he entered it the day Harun al-Rashid entered it, and the people left the caliph to welcome him until sandals broke under the crowd, whereupon a woman of the palace said 'this, by God, is the king — not the one who gathers people by might and sword' ^{20 21}. He applies his quartets to him: the talent of memory and languages + a mighty will + balance between his field and worship, generosity, character and care for people ^{22 23}.

In the second episode al-Suwaidan transmits a scholar's testimony: 'My eyes have not seen the like of four: none better at memorising hadith than al-Thawri, none sharper in scrutiny than Shu'ba, none more sensible than Malik, and none more sincere to the ummah than Abdallah ibn al-Mubarak'; and Sufyan al-Thawri's saying 'I wish my whole life were one year of Ibn al-Mubarak's — yet I could not match three days of his' ^{24 25}. Of his love for the ummah: 'Would that God had made me a trial borne for the ummah of Muhammad' — contrasted with scholars in ivory towers ²⁶. Of his deeds: he held his tongue, speaking only what profited, reckoning that angels record every word; and the account of the masked champion who duelled the Roman, killed him and six more, then refused to let the commander identify him — 'I do not want him to know me, for God knows me' — who was Ibn al-Mubarak himself ^{27 28 29}. The Zamzam story: he drank facing the qibla saying 'I drink you for the thirst of the Day of Resurrection', asking for neither knowledge nor wealth since he had attained both ³⁰. His book al-Zuhd wa-l-Raqa'iq: when dictating it he wept until he became like a slaughtered bull, and none could question him for the vehemence of his weeping ^{31 32}. The Hashimite's story: the man asked to be taught hadith privately; he refused — 'I humble my body to you, but not the Prophet's hadith' — then rose to hold his stirrup in honour of the Prophet's house ^{33 34}. His rule on what occurred among the Companions: 'a tribulation, but I do not call any one of them a tribulation-monger' — excuses are sought for them and none may plunge into them ^{35 36}. Of his maxims: 'the God-fearing are never safe from four things — a past sin whose end with God is unknown, a remainder of life whose perils are unknown, a favour that may be a lure and enticement, and a swerving of the heart in a moment that strips a man of his religion unawares'; and 'whoever belittles the scholars loses his hereafter, whoever belittles the rulers loses his world, and whoever belittles his brethren loses his manliness'; and 'ink upon the garment is the adornment of scholars' ^{37 38 39}. His ease with Abu Hanifa: praying behind him while differing on raising the hands, each jested to the other 'I feared you would fly away' — and each excused the other ^{40 41}. His verse answer to al-Fudayl ibn Iyad, who had counselled him to leave jihad for worship: 'O worshipper of the two Harams, had you seen us you would know your worship is play... God does not join dust in His path and the smoke of hellfire in one man's nostril' ^{42 43}. And on his deathbed, to the man prompting him with the shahada, he dictated the fiqh of the prompting — that the last words of the dying should be la ilaha illa Allah and it is not repeated over him — adding 'were it not that I feared you might wrong someone after me, I would not have told you this' ^{44 45}.