Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Habban

Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Habban ibn Munqidh ibn Amr ibn Malik ibn Khansa' ibn Mabdhul ibn Amr ibn Ghanm ibn Mazin, Abu Abd Allah al-Ansari al-Madani, a trustworthy Successor prolific in hadith who held a teaching circle in the Prophet ﷺ's mosque where he gave legal opinions; he died in Medina in 121 AH aged seventy-four ¹.

His lineage runs to Mazin, ancestor of the Banu al-Najjar of Khazraj. He narrated from Anas ibn Malik (may God be pleased with him), Dhakwan Abu Salih al-Samman, Rafi' ibn Khadij, Abbad ibn Tamim, Abd al-Rahman ibn Hurmuz al-A'raj, his father Yahya ibn Habban, his uncle Wasi' ibn Habban, and others ¹.

Among his narrators were Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab al-Zuhri — his contemporary — Hisham ibn Urwa, Malik ibn Anas, al-Layth ibn Sa'd, Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar, Ubayd Allah ibn Umar al-Umari, Rabi'a ibn Abi Abd al-Rahman and Rabi'a ibn Uthman al-Taymi. Al-Nasa'i declared him trustworthy, and Ibn Hibban listed him in Kitab al-Thiqat ¹.

Al-Waqidi said: he had a circle in the Prophet's mosque and gave legal opinions; he was trustworthy and prolific in hadith, and died in Medina in 121 AH aged seventy-four ². All the major collections narrate from him ¹.

Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Habban was a Medinese scholar among the Successors who sat in the Prophet's mosque teaching and answering questions, and the great scholars — Imam Malik and al-Zuhri among them — took hadith from him.

• Text from Tahdhib al-Kamal, the volume of Muhammad-names, entry 6273, pp. 551-552.
• In Abu Zur'a's Marasil, his narrations from Ali and Uthman are mursal, as quoted in the entry's own apparatus.