317 – Ibn Shādhān, ʿAḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan al-Baghdādī*

The shaykh, leading imam, hadith scholar, a reliable and exacting authority: Abū Bakr ʿAḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Shādhān ibn Ḥarb ibn Mihrān al-Baghdādī, the cloth-merchant, father of Abū ʿAlī ibn Shādhān.

He studied under Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAnbar, Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, ʿAḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Mughallis, Abū Bakr ibn Durayd, and several others.

While in Damascus he also heard from ʿAḥmad ibn Zabān al-Kindī.

Transmitters who narrated from him include his companion Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dāraquṭnī; his two sons, Abū ʿAlī and ʿAbd Allāh; Abū Muḥammad al-Khallāl; al-Tanūkhī; al-Jawharī; and many others.

He used to export cloth to Egypt.

Al-Khaṭīb said: “He was trustworthy, firmly grounded, and possessed an abundant collection of hadith. He was born in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 298 AH, and he began to receive hadith when he was five years old (1).”

Abū Dharr al-Harawī said: “In Baghdad I never saw anyone whose reliability equals that of al-Qawwās; next after him is Abū Bakr ibn Shādhān.” His copyist asked, “Not even al-Dāraquṭnī?” He replied, “Al-Dāraquṭnī is an imam.”

ʿUbayd Allāh al-Azhari reported: “I heard Abū Bakr ibn Shādhān say, ‘They brought me a booklet of my auditions from Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Bāghandī dating to the year 309 AH, but I no longer had my own copy of it, so I did not transmit its contents.’”