Makhul al-Dimashqi

Abu Abdallah Makhul ibn Abdallah al-Shami, the jurist of Syria in his time; al-Zuhri counted the scholars of his age as four: Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab in Medina, al-Sha'bi in Kufa, al-Hasan al-Basri in Basra, and Makhul in Syria. ¹

Ibn Makula mentioned him in al-Ikmal under the entry for Shadhil, giving his line as Makhul ibn Abi Muslim, his mother Shirah bint Shadhil ibn Sind. Al-Khatib reported that his grandfather Shadhil, a man of Herat, married a daughter of a king of Kabul and died leaving her pregnant; she bore Shahrab, who grew up among his uncles in Kabul and fathered Makhul, who was taken captive as a boy, came into the hands of Sa'id ibn al-As, and was gifted to a woman of Hudhayl who freed him. Other reports make him the mawla of a woman of Qays or of Abu Layla. ¹

He taught al-Awza'i and Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz; no one of his time gave more verdicts, and he never issued one without saying that opinion errs and hits the mark. He heard Anas ibn Malik (may God be pleased with him), Wathila ibn al-Asqa' and Abu Hind al-Dari, and was based in Damascus. He had a marked lisp, substituting one letter for another; he once spoke for qadar and later recanted. It is said he met five hundred of the Prophet ﷺ's Companions. ¹