Biography of Ibn Hibban (Muhammad ibn Hibban)

[...] of hadith.

He came to Egypt, entered upon the Ichkhidh, then set out for Damascus: they examined his madhhab, declared him a fugitive, and he fled.

Ibn Chahine said: "I entered, with Ibn al-Mouzaffar and ad-Daruqutni, upon Ibn al-Ji'abi while he was ill. I said to him: who am I? He said: 'Glory be to Allah, are you not so-and-so and so-and-so?' He named us, we prayed for him and left. We walked a few steps when we heard the crier announcing his death, and we saw his books turned to ashes."

Al-Azhari said: "Soukayna, the mourning woman of the Rafidites, wailed in his funeral procession."

Abou Nu'aym said: "Al-Ji'abi came to Isfahan and narrated there in the year three hundred forty-nine."

Ishaq ibn Tariq informed us: Ibn Khalil informed us: Abou al-Makaram at-Taymi informed us: Abou Ali al-Haddad informed us: Abou Nu'aym informed us: Muhammad ibn Umar ibn Salm related to us: Muhammad ibn an-Nu'man related to us: Houdba related to us: Hazm ibn Abi Hazm related to us: "I heard al-Hasan say: evil companions are the dinar and the dirham: they benefit you not until they leave you."

I say: he died in Rajab of the year three hundred fifty-five.

No. 70: Ibn Hibban, Muhammad ibn Hibban ibn Ahmad at-Tamimi.

The imam, the deeply learned, the hafiz, the master craftsman, the sheikh of Khurasan, Abou Hatim Muhammad ibn Hibban ibn Ahmad ibn Hibban ibn Mu'adh ibn Mou'bad ibn Suhayd ibn Hadiyya ibn Mourra ibn Sa'd ibn Yazid ibn Mourra ibn Zayd ibn Abdallah ibn Darim ibn Hanzala ibn Malik ibn Zayd Manat ibn Tamim, the Tamimite, the Darimi, the Busti, author of the famous works.

The birth and the teachers of Ibn Hibban

He was born in the year two hundred seventy.

The most senior teacher Abou Khalifa met was al-Fadl ibn al-Houbbab al-Jumahi: he heard from him in Bassora, and from Zakariyya as-Saji.

He heard in Egypt: Abou Abd ar-Rahman an-Nasa'i, Ishaq ibn Younous al-Minjaniji, and several others.

In Mossoul: Abou Ya'la Ahmad ibn Ali.

In Nasa: al-Hasan ibn Soufyan.

In Jurjan: Imran ibn Moussa ibn Moujachi' as-Sakhtiyani.

In Baghdad: Ahmad ibn al-Hasan ibn Abd al-Jabbar the Sufi and his peers.

In Damascus: Ja'far ibn Ahmad, Muhammad ibn Khouraym, and people.

In Nishapur: Ibn Khuzayma, as-Sarraj, and al-Masarjis.

In Ascalon: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn Qoutayba.

In Jerusalem: Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Salm.

In Tabariyya: Sa'id ibn Hachim.

In Herat: Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman as-Sami and al-Husayn ibn Idris.

In Tustar: Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Zouhayr.

In Manbij: Umar ibn Sa'id.

In Ouboulla: Abou Ya'la ibn Zouhayr.

In Harran: Abou 'Ourouba.

In Mecca: al-Moufad-dal al-Janadi.

In Antioch: Ahmad ibn Ubaydallah ad-Darimi.

In Boukhara: Umar ibn Muhammad ibn Boujayr.

The narrators of Ibn Hibban

Those who narrated from him: Abou Abdallah ibn Manda, Abou Abdallah al-Hakim, Mansour ibn Abdallah al-Khalidi, Abou Mu'adh Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Rizqallah as-Sijistani, Abou al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Haroun az-Zawzani, Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Mansour an-Nouqati, and other people.

Abou Sa'id al-Idrisi said: "He was judge of Samarcand for a time. He was among the jurists of religion and the hafiz of traditions, knowledgeable in medicine, in astronomy, and in the branches of knowledge."

The works of Ibn Hibban

He composed the "Sahih Musnad", meaning the "Book of types and divisions"; the "Book of the Chronicle"; the "Book of the weak narrators"; and he taught the people of Samarcand fiqh.

Al-Hakim said: "Ibn Hibban was among the vessels of knowledge in fiqh, language, hadith, and preaching, and among the intelligent men in the study of narrators."

He came to Nishapur in the year three hundred thirty-four, travelled to the district of Nasa, then returned to us in the year seven. He resided among us in Nishapur and founded the Sufi convent (khanqah). A number of his works were read before him. Then he left Nishapur for his homeland, Sijistan, in the year forty. Journeys were made to him for the audition of his books.

Abou Bakr al-Khatib said: "Ibn Hibban was trustworthy, noble, and perceptive."

Abou Amr Ibn as-Salah said in the "Generations of the Shafiites": "Ibn Hibban committed gross errors in his appraisals."

Ibn Hibban said, while commenting on the book of "Types": "We may have written from more than two thousand masters."

I say: such are the ambitions one should have, in addition to what he had of fiqh, Arabic language, dazzling virtues, and an abundance of works.

Al-Khatib said: Mas'oud ibn Nasir as-Sijzi listed the works of Ibn Hibban and said: the "Chronicle of the trustworthy"; "The defects of the illusions of the chroniclers", one volume; "The defects of the merits of az-Zouhri", twenty fascicles; "The defects of the hadith of Malik", ten fascicles; "The defects of the chains of Abou Hanifa", ten fascicles.

"Where Soufyan differs from Chou'ba", three fascicles; "Where Chou'ba differs from Soufyan", two fascicles.

"What the people of Medina alone narrate of the Sunan", one volume; "What the Meccans alone narrate", one volume; "What the people of Iraq alone narrate", one volume; "What the people of Khurasan alone narrate", one volume; "What Ibn 'Ourouba alone narrates from Qatada, or Chou'ba from Qatada", one volume.

"The rarities of the reports", one volume; "The rarities of the Koufians", ten fascicles; "The rarities of the people of Bassora", eight fascicles; "The bynames (kunya)", one volume; "The separation and the link", one volume; "The separation between the hadith of Ach'ath ibn Abd al-Malik and that of Ach'ath ibn Sawwar", two fascicles; the "Book of what is arrested of what is elevated", ten fascicles.

"The merits of Malik"; "The merits of ash-Shafi'i"; the "Book of the collection by the cities", ten fascicles; "The scattered chapters", three volumes; "The types of sciences and their descriptions", three volumes; "The guidance to the science of the Sunan", one volume; "The acceptance of the reports"; and other things.

Mas'oud ibn Nasir said: "Of these works, only very little is found today. He had made his books a waqf in a repository, and what caused their loss with the passing of time was the weakness of the ruler and the encroachment of the corrupters."

Abou Isma'il Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Ansari, author of the book "The blame of dialectical theology", said: "I heard Abd as-Samad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad say: I heard my father say: they took Abou Hatim ibn Hibban to task for his saying: 'Prophethood is knowledge and deed.' They condemned him as a heretic (zindiq); he was banished, a letter was written to the caliph about him, and the caliph wrote to have him killed."

I say: this is a strange account. Ibn Hibban is nevertheless among the great imams, and we do not claim for him immunity from error. But this word that he uttered, a Muslim may utter it, and the philosopher heretic may utter it too. Yet the Muslim's utterance of it is not fitting; however, he may be excused, and we say: he did not intend to confine the beginning to the report. Like that is his saying, upon him the prayer and the peace: "The pilgrimage is Arafa"; yet it is known that the pilgrim does not become a pilgrim by the mere standing at Arafa: other obligations and duties remain upon him; he only mentioned the essential of the pilgrimage.

Likewise, this one mentioned only the essential of prophethood: for among the most perfect attributes of the prophet are the perfection of knowledge and of deed; no one is a prophet without the two of them; but not everyone in whom they appear is a prophet, for prophethood is a gift from the Truth, the Most High, which the slave cannot acquire; rather, through it are generated the knowledge from the divine presence and the righteous deed.

As for the philosopher, he says: prophethood is acquired, produced by knowledge and deed. This is unbelief; and Abou Hatim did not intend it at all, far be it from him. If there are in his divisions sayings, far-fetched interpretations, and strange hadiths, that is true; and he himself acknowledged that no one can extract from his "Sahih" except the one who has memorized it, like one who has a Quran and cannot locate the verse he wants except the one who has memorized it.

His conditions in the Sahih

He said in his "Sahih": "We stipulated, in its transmission and in committing it to our book, not to invoke as proof except what fulfils, for every sheikh in its chain, five qualities:

Uprightness in religion, with the fine veiling (of faults).

Second: truthfulness in hadith, by his renown in it.

Third: intelligence, as to the hadith he transmits.

Fourth: knowledge, as to what alters the meaning of the significations of what he narrates.

Fifth: his report being free of any concealment (tadlis).

Whoever combines these five qualities, we invoke as proof by him."

Abou Isma'il al-Ansari said: "I heard Yahya ibn Ammar the preacher, while I asked him about Ibn Hibban. He said: we expelled him from Sijistan. He had much knowledge but had no great religion. He came to us, rejected the limit set by Allah, and we expelled him."

I say: your disavowal of him is itself an innovation, and venturing into that belongs to what Allah has not permitted: no text has come establishing that or denying it. "It is part of the excellence of a man's Islam to leave what does not concern him." And Allah is far above being limited or described except as He has described Himself, or as He taught His messengers, in the sense He intended, without likeness and without how: "Nothing is like Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing" (Surah ach-Choura, verse 11).

I read in the handwriting of the hafiz ad-Diya, in a fascicule, objections he noted against the book of Ibn Hibban.

He said: concerning the hadith of Anas on the consecutive days: "It contains proof that all the reports in which a stone is placed on his belly out of hunger are fabrications; their true meaning is the fold of the garment (houjouz), the edge of the cloak, for Allah fed His messenger: what good is a stone against hunger?"

I say: yet he related in his book the hadith of Ibn Abbas about the going out of Abou Bakr and Oumar, overcome by hunger, who met the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and informed him. He said: "The One who made you come out has made me come out." This indicates that he was fed and given to drink precisely during the consecutive days.

He said: concerning the hadith of Imran ibn Houssayn, in which the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said to a man: "Have you fasted anything of the white days of Chaabane?" He said: no. He said: "When you break the fast, fast two days."

This is a phrasing of inquiry, intending to make known the denial of the lawfulness of that, as one would blame him were he to do it, like his saying to Aicha: "Do you cover the walls?!"

And his ordering two days of fasting in Chawwal meant the end of the white days. For in the full month, and the white days are in the incomplete month one single day. We say: had it been blameworthy in his eyes, he would not have ordered him to make it up.

He said: concerning the hadith: "I passed by Moussa while he was praying in his grave": Allah gave life to Moussa in his grave until the Chosen One, upon him the peace, passed by him; and his grave is in Madian, between Medina and Jerusalem.

And the hadith: "He used to visit his wives in a single night, and he had nine wives", with the version of ad-Dastouwa'i from Qatada: "eleven".

Ibn Hibban said: Anas related that deed of his at the beginning of his arrival in Medina, when he had eleven women.

And the first report, Anas related it only at the end of his arrival in Medina, when he had nine, for this deed was repeated several times.

We say: at the beginning of his arrival he had no wife other than Souda; then until the fourth year of the Hijra he did not have more than four women: he married Hafsa and Oumm Salama in the year three, and before them Souda and Aicha; and we do not know that eleven wives ever gathered with him at one moment.

He said: "He mentions the refuted report: the saying of the one who claimed that between Ismail and Dawoud there were a thousand years." He related the account of Abou Dharr, who said: "O Messenger of Allah, how far is it between the Sacred Mosque and the Farthest Mosque?" He said: "Forty years."

Hadith of Ibn Umar: the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, performed the Umra in Rajab. He said: the clarification lies in that the eminent scholar may forget; for the Chosen One performed the Umra only four times:

The first: the Umra of compensation, the year before Houdaybiya, and that was in Ramadan.

Then the second: when he conquered Mecca, in Ramadan.

And when he returned from Houzayn, he performed the Umra from al-Ji'rana, and that was in Chawwal.

The fourth: with his pilgrimage.

Abou Hatim thus erred, as you see, in some things.

For in the "Two Sahihs", from Anas: "The Prophet of Allah performed four Umras, all of them in Dhou al-Qi'da except the one of his pilgrimage: the Umra of Houdaybiya, his Umra of the following year, and his Umra from al-Ji'rana."

He said: "He mentions what he, upon him the peace, used to recite while sitting between the two sermons, but he mentioned nothing."

The death of Ibn Hibban

Ibn Hibban died in Sijistan, in the city of Boust, in Chawwal of the year three hundred fifty-eight, at the age of eighty.

And I found nothing of his hadith through an elevated chain.

Musallam ibn Muhammad al-Alani wrote to me: Abou al-Yumn al-Kindi informed us: Abou Mansour ach-Chaybani informed us: Abou Bakr the hafiz informed us: Abou Mu'adh Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad informed us, in the year four hundred thirteen, having come for the pilgrimage: Abou Hatim at-Tamimi informed us: Abou Khalifa related to us: al-Qa'nabi related to us, from Chou'ba, from Mansour, from Rabi'i, from Abou Mas'oud:

That the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: "Among the words of the first prophethood that the people have received is: if you have no shame, then do as you wish."

Ahmad ibn Hibbatallah informed us: Abou Rawh Abd al-Mu'izz ibn Muhammad informed us: Zahir ibn Tahir informed us: Abou Bakr al-Bayhaqi informed us: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Mansour an-Nouqani informed us: Abou Hatim Muhammad ibn Hibban related to us: Ahmad ibn al-Hasan as-Soufi related to us.

And Ahmad ibn Ishaq informed us: Ahmad ibn Sarama and al-Fath ibn Abdallah informed us, both saying: Muhammad ibn Umar informed us: Ibn an-Naqqour informed us: Ali ibn Umar al-Harbi informed us: the Sufi related to us: Yahya ibn Ma'in related to us: Abda related to us, from Hicham ibn Ourwa, from Moussa ibn Ouqba, from Abdallah ibn Amr al-Awdi, from Ibn Mas'oud:

From the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, who said: "The Fire is forbidden to every person easy, gentle, near, and accommodating."

At-Tirmidhi reported it from the hadith of Abda ibn Sulayman and judged it good.

I read before Sulayman ibn Hamza the judge: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid the hafiz informed us: Abd al-Mu'izz ibn Muhammad informed us that Tamim al-Jurjani informed them: Ali ibn Muhammad al-Bahhathi informed us: Muhammad ibn Ahmad az-Zawzani informed us: Muhammad ibn Hibban informed us: al-Hasan ibn Soufyan related to us: Yazid ibn Salih and Muhammad ibn Aban al-Wasiti related:

Jarir ibn Hazim related to us: I heard Abou Raja' al-Utaridi: I heard Ibn Abbas on the pulpit say:

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: "He will not cease [...]"