Abu Bakr al-Qati'i

Ahmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Hamdan ibn Malik ibn Shabib, Abu Bakr al-Qatiʿi (274–368 AH), a hadith scholar of Baghdad. The Musnad, the Zuhd and the History were transmitted from him, on the authority of Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal. ¹

He was called al-Qatiʿi after the flour quarter (Qati'at al-Daqiq) where he lived. He heard from Abu Bakr ibn Ibrahim ibn Ishaq, Ishaq ibn al-Hasan al-Harbiyyan, Bishr ibn Dusi, al-Kudaymi, al-Kajji, Abd Allah ibn Ahmad and others. He narrated a great deal and was trustworthy. Abd Allah ibn Ahmad would come to them, read to them whatever they wanted, and seat him on his lap (his mother was the daughter of the brother of Abd Allah ibn al-Hassas). People would say to him, "Does it not hurt you?" and he would say, "I love him." ²

When al-Qatiʿa was flooded by the Black Water, some of his books were lost, and he began compiling replacements. Some people criticised him and said he had written from a book in which he had no record of hearing it. Such a thing, however, is no reproach to him: leading scholars such as al-Daraqutni, Ibn Shahin, al-Barqani, Abu Nuʿaym and al-Hakim related from him, and no one refrained from narrating from him or stopped relying on him. It is related that he changed in the last part of his life, so that he no longer recognised anything that was read to him. He died in the year 368 AH and was buried in the cemetery of Bab Harb, near the grave of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. ³