Ibn Jawsa, Ahmad ibn Umayr

Ahmad ibn Umayr ibn Yusuf ibn Musa ibn Jawsa, Abu al-Hasan the hafiz, client of Banu Hashim (or of Muhammad ibn Salih ibn Bayhas al-Kilabi), is described by Ibn Asakir in Tarikh Dimashq as the leading shaykh of Syria in his day, who travelled, wrote and held learned exchanges. ¹ He narrated from a great many Damascenes, Himsis and Egyptians, among them Abu al-Taqi Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Muhammad ibn Wazir, al-Abbas ibn al-Walid of Beirut, Yunus ibn Abd al-A'la, al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman and al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar; al-Tabarani, Ibn al-Muqri', Abu Ali al-Naysaburi, Hamza al-Kinani, Abu Ahmad ibn Adi, Ibn al-Sunni and others narrated from him. ^{1 2}

Ibn Asakir quotes Abu Ali al-Naysaburi: I heard Ibn Jawsa — one of the pillars of hadith — say: a chain shortened by fifty years from the shaykh's death is a high chain. ³ He relates that a man from Baghdad came to him and Ibn Jawsa offered him a dirham for every Syrian hadith he could produce that Ibn Jawsa did not know; the man could produce none, so Ibn Jawsa gave him a dirham for every hadith they had discussed — he was a wealthy man. ⁴ Al-Hakim called him imam of the hadith scholars and head of Syria, and Abu Hammam al-Karkhi said Ibn Jawsa in Syria was like Abu al-Abbas ibn Uqda in Kufa. ⁴ Ibn Asakir also relates with its chain a report that his ancestor "Jawsa" had been a Jew who converted to Islam. ³

Ibn Jawsa narrated from Abu al-Taqi from Baqiyya from Warqa' and Ibn Thawban from Amr ibn Dinar from Ata ibn Yasar from Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) the hadith "when the prayer is called there is no prayer but the prescribed one"; al-Tabarani said Ibn Jawsa alone had it, and that he was among the trustworthy and most eminent Muslims. ^{8 5} Ibn Asakir notes that several hafizes objected to his mentioning Ibn Thawban in the chain, and that he himself found a corroboration in Ibn Abi Zaynab al-Himsi's version from Abu al-Taqi, who said the hadith was in two places in Abu al-Taqi's papers and he had combined them. ⁵

He relates from al-Hakim, from Abu Amr al-Saghir, how visiting scholars gathered round Abu Ali al-Naysaburi in Damascus to complain of what they objected to in Ibn Jawsa, led by al-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Asadabadhi, who said Ibn Jawsa had added "and Ibn Thawban" in fresh ink to his original copy; Abu Ali replied: do not do this — this is one of the imams of the Muslims and has crossed the bridge. ⁶ He adds that Ibn Jawsa sent Abu Ali twenty dinars and advised him to leave the region because the authorities were after him, and he left. ^{6 7}

Da'laj ibn Ahmad refused to narrate from him, saying he had seen a Chinese puppy in his house. ⁷

Ibn Zabr said he died on a Wednesday at the noon prayer and was buried on Thursday after the afternoon prayer, three days before the end of Jumada I, 320 AH; his nephew Abu al-Qasim led the funeral prayer and he was buried in the Bab al-Saghir cemetery; Ibn Yunus, Abu al-Husayn al-Razi and Abd al-Wahhab al-Kilabi give the same year. ⁹