Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥasan (1) ibn al-Dajjājī, al-Baghdādī, the muḥtasib (2) of Baghdad.

He transmitted hadith from ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-Ḥarbī, Abū Muḥammad ibn Maʿrūf, Ismāʿīl ibn Suwayd, and a number of others. He also possessed an ijāza from al-Muʿāfā ibn Zakariyyā.

Among those who heard from him were: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī, Shujāʿ al-Dhuhlī, Nāṣir ibn ʿAlī al-Balaqlānī, Ṭalḥa ibn Aḥmad al-ʿĀqūlī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Anṣārī, Abū Manṣūr al-Qazzāz, and others.

Al-Khaṭīb said, “His audition was sound. He died on the last day of Shaʿbān in 463 AH, at the age of eighty-three.” (3)

He held the office of ḥisba, but his tenure was not commended and he was dismissed. (4)

Al-Samʿānī relates: “I read, in the handwriting of Hibat Allāh al-Saqaṭī, that Ibn al-Dajjājī had once enjoyed prestige, prominence, and ample means. When I knew him, time had already reduced him. I visited him with a party of wealthy men to hear hadith from him while he was ill. We entered and found him lying on a rush mat (5), wearing a cloak that had been singed by fire, and he possessed nothing worth even a single dirham. Yet he forced himself to sit up until we had read to him to the full satisfaction of the hadith students. When we left I asked, ‘Have you anything we can give the shaykh?’

“They gathered about five mithqāls for him. I called his daughter and handed it to her, then waited to see her deliver it. When she gave it to him, he struck his own face and cried, ‘What a disgrace! Shall I take payment for the hadith of the Messenger—’”