يحيى بن معين

يحيى بن معين

The celebrated traditionist — among the seven first tested at the mihna in 218, dead at Medina aged seventy-five, most reports in 233 ¹. Ibn al-Khatib's long entry (#7484): Abu Zakariyya b. Ma'in b. 'Awn b. Ziyad b. Bistam al-Murri of Ghatafan — a mawla, not Arab-born, 'a mawla of al-Junayd b. Abd al-Rahman al-Murri'; born 158 in al-Mansur's last year, of 'Aqya near al-Anbar twelve farsakhs from Baghdad where his father was a katib; inherited one million and fifty thousand dirhams and spent it all on hadith 'until nothing remained to wear'; his teachers Ibn al-Mubarak, Hushaym, 'Isa b. Yunus, Ibn 'Uyayna, Ghundar, al-Qattan, Ibn Mahdi, Waki' and Abu Mu'awiya; his students Ahmad, Abu Khaythama, the two Dawraqis, al-Saghani, al-'Abbas al-Duri, Ya'qub b. Shayba, al-Bukhari, Hanbal b. Ishaq and Abu Dawud. Ibn al-Madini: 'men's knowledge ended at Yahya b. Ma'in'; Ahmad called him only 'Abu Zakariyya' — never by name — and said 'God created this man for this matter, to expose the liars' lies' ².