241 – al-Abharī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad*
The Imām, erudite scholar, judge, ḥadith expert, and leading authority of the Mālikī school: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Tamīmī, known as al-Abharī the Mālikī, resident scholar of Baghdad.
He was born in the early 290s AH.
He heard ḥadith from Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Bāghandī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zaydān al-Bajalī, Abū ʿArūbah al-Ḥarrānī, Muḥammad ibn Tammām al-Bahrānī, Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ḥalabī, Muḥammad ibn Khuraym al-ʿUqaylī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Ushnānī, Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd the ḥāfiẓ, and their peers in Iraq, Syria, and the Jazīrah.
He collected and authored numerous works on the school, and studied jurisprudence in Baghdad under Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf the judge and his son Abū al-Ḥusayn.
Those who transmitted from him include al-Dāraqutnī—who praised him—Abū Bakr al-Barqānī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAtīqī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Bādā, ʿAlī ibn al-Muḥassin al-Tanūkhī, Abū Muḥammad al-Jawharī, and many others.
Al-Dāraqutnī said: “He is the Imām of the Mālikīs; seekers of knowledge travel to him from the farthest reaches of the world. I saw groups from al-Andalus and the Maghrib at his door. I witnessed him reviewing legal ḥadiths and discussing the narrations of Mālik. He is reliable, trustworthy, ascetic, and scrupulous.”