Ibn Khuzayma, Muhammad ibn Ishaq

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Khuzayma ibn al-Mughira al-Sulami of Nishapur, whom the source calls "the imam of the imams" and the hadith master of Nishapur, compiled the Sahih known by his name. He was born in 223 AH (838 CE) and died in 311 AH (924 CE). ¹

Ibn al-Jawzi tells a well-known story in al-Muntazam. Ibn Khuzayma was in Egypt with Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi, Muhammad ibn 'Ulwayh al-Wazzan and Muhammad ibn Harun al-Ruyani, hearing al-Shafi'i's books from al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman. Their provisions ran out and they went three days without food. They drew lots for who would go out and ask for help; the lot fell on Ibn Khuzayma, who asked for time to pray two rak'as and make the prayer of seeking guidance. ³

Meanwhile there was a knock at the door: a servant of Ahmad ibn Tulun, the governor of Egypt, brought each of them a purse of fifty dinars, with the governor's message to spend it and expect as much again when it was gone. Asked why, he said that Ibn Tulun, napping at midday, had seen someone in a dream ask him what his excuse would be for four men of learning who had gone three days hungry; he woke in alarm and sent to find them. ³

Ibn al-Athir relates that al-Husayn ibn 'Ali al-Razi was asked why he had not written from Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, at a time when the Hanbalis kept people from visiting him, and Ibn Khuzayma told him: "I wish you had not written from everyone you wrote from, and had heard from Abu Ja'far instead." ²

He is also reported to have said, after reading al-Tabari's commentary: "I know of no one on the face of the earth more learned than Abu Ja'far, and the Hanbalis have wronged him." ²

A duplicate record with the id person/ibn-khuzayma-muhammad has been merged into this one; that id remains as an alias pointing here.

The biography in al-Shahwan's study gives his full lineage: Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Khuzayma ibn al-Mughira ibn Salih ibn Bakr al-Sulami al-Naysaburi, the hadith master, authority and Shafi'i jurist, author of many works. ⁴

He was born in Safar 223 AH in Nishapur and grew up there. He began hadith young, hearing Ishaq ibn Rahwayh and Muhammad ibn Humayd al-Razi, but never transmitted from them, since he had heard them before he could understand. ⁴ When he wished to travel to Qutayba ibn Sa'id, his father made him first memorise the Qur'an and lead a complete recitation in prayer; then he let him go, and he set out for Marw, where news reached them of Qutayba's death (240 AH). ⁵ He went on to Rayy, Baghdad, Syria, Basra, Kufa, the Jazira, Egypt and Wasit. ⁵

• His best-known teachers include Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Dhuhli, Muhammad ibn Bashshar (Bundar), Abu Musa Muhammad ibn al-Muthanna, Mahmud ibn Ghaylan, 'Ali ibn Hujr, Nasr ibn 'Ali al-Jahdami, Yunus ibn 'Abd al-A'la and Ahmad ibn Mani'; he also heard al-Bukhari and Muslim. His teachers named in Kitab al-Tawhid alone number more than 135. ⁶
• He studied law with al-Muzani and al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman al-Muradi, the companions of al-Shafi'i, and became an independent jurist consulted for fatwas in his city, though hadith and its chains were what he became known for. ⁷
• Among those who narrated from him were some of his own teachers — al-Bukhari and Muslim outside their Sahihs, and Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah ibn al-Hakam — and others such as Abu 'Ali al-Naysaburi, Yahya ibn Muhammad ibn Sa'id, Abu Hamid ibn Baluyah and Abu Bakr ibn Mihran the Qur'an reader. The last to narrate from him in Nishapur was his grandson Abu Tahir Muhammad ibn al-Fadl, through whom Kitab al-Tawhid has come down. ⁶
• Among his followers al-Hakim names Abu 'Ali al-Thaqafi and Abu Bakr ibn Ishaq al-Sibghi, his successor in giving fatwas. ⁸

• He is reported to have said that when he wished to write something he entered into prayer seeking guidance until it came to him there, and then began; and that, asked where his learning came from, he cited the report on Zamzam water and said he had asked God for beneficial knowledge when he drank it. ⁹
• The biography describes his austerity: he never had more than two shirts, one worn and one at the tailor's, and gave away the one he took off. His grandson said he saved nothing, spent on scholars, and did not know one weight from another. ¹⁰
• Al-Hakim records a great banquet he gave for poor and rich alike, for which all the food in the city was brought in, in Jumada al-Ula 309 AH. ¹⁰
• Abu Bakr ibn Baluyah relates that when the amir Isma'il ibn Ahmad narrated from his father a report with an error in its chain, Ibn Khuzayma corrected him; the judge Abu Dharr told him they had known of the error for twenty years and no one dared correct it, and he answered that it was not lawful for him to hear a report of the Prophet ﷺ with an error in it and not correct it. ¹¹

• Asked about him, Ibn Abi Hatim said: "He asks about us, we are not asked about him; he is an imam to be followed." Al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman, one of his teachers, said: "We learned more from him than he learned from us." ¹²
• Al-Daraqutni: "Ibn Khuzayma was a firm imam without equal." Ibn Hibban said he had seen no one on earth so skilled in the craft of the Sunan, holding their sound wordings and additions as though all of them were before his eyes, as Ibn Khuzayma. ¹³
• Ibn Surayj said he drew out the fine points of the Prophet's hadith "with tweezers". Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi relates his saying: "I have followed no one's opinion blindly since I was sixteen." ¹⁴

Al-Hakim says his works numbered more than 140 books besides his legal questions, which filled more than a hundred parts, and that he wrote on the law drawn from the report of Barira in three parts. ¹⁵ The editor says most are lost; what survives is Kitab al-Tawhid, about a quarter of his Sahih, and Sha'n al-Du'a' wa-Tafsir al-Ad'iya al-Ma'thura in the Zahiriyya library in Damascus. ¹⁵ From his cross-references one also knows of a Ma'ani al-Qur'an, a Musnad on law he sometimes calls "the Great Book", and a Book of Decree. ^{16 17}

The editor quotes him as saying that the Qur'an is God's speech, revelation and sending-down, uncreated, and that "no one has a say alongside the Messenger of God once a report is sound", and holds that his creed on God's names and attributes is that of the early Sunni authorities. ¹⁸ His Kitab al-Tawhid was criticised by the Ash'ari Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and, in modern times, by Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari, as the editor reports before answering them; the details are on the page for the book. ¹⁹

He died on the night of Saturday, 2 Dhu al-Qa'da 311 AH, aged eighty-nine. Al-Hakim's History of Nishapur gave him a long notice of some twenty-odd leaves, with his will and two elegies on him. ¹¹