He transmitted hadith from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbdan al-Faqih, Abu ʿAli al-Shamukhi (1), and a number of others.
Ahmad ibn al-Abnusi (2) remarked: “He was regarded as inclined toward the Muʿtazila.”
Ibn ʿAqil’s Funun (3) records: “He was learned in legal principles, Arabic, and the laws of inheritance, though the bulk of his expertise lay in jurisprudence. He followed the way of the early generations, living in asceticism and pious restraint.”
Shujaʿ al-Duhli said: “A Muʿtazili; I copied traditions from him (4).”
His son related: “He had memorised Abu ʿUbayd’s Gharib al-Hadith (5) and Ibn Faris’s Mujmal (6). We never knew him to backbite anyone.”
He passed away in Ramadan, 489 AH.
19 – Abu ʿAmir al-Azdi, Mahmud ibn al-Qasim ibn Muhammad *
The shaykh, the imam, the hadith transmitter, the judge: Abu ʿAmir Mahmud ibn al-Qasim, son of the judge,
(1) The nisba refers to Shamukh, a village near Basra; see al-Ansab, 7/265.
(2) His biography will appear later in the present volume under no. 177.
(3) His biography will appear in this volume under no. 259. His book al-Funun is said to run to four hundred volumes—no work of greater size is known in Islam. Only one volume has been printed, edited by someone unqualified for the task, so it contains many errors and distortions that were documented in the periodical al-Mujtama (Damascus).
(4) See Dhayl Tarikh Baghdad, 1/12.
(5) Al-Qasim b. Sallam al-Harawi (d. 244 AH); his biography appeared earlier, 10/no. 164. His Gharib al-Hadith was printed by the Osmania Oriental Publications Bureau, India, 1964.
(6) This refers to Ahmad b. Faris b. Zakariyya, the linguist and man of letters (d. 395 AH); his biography appeared earlier, 17/no. 65. His most famous linguistic work is al-Mujmal, in which he records only sound usages. A small, non-critical portion was printed at the Saadah Press, Cairo, 1331 AH. Dar al-Risalah is now issuing a complete critical edition prepared by Zuhayr Abd al-Muhsin Sultan, expected to reach readers soon, God willing.
(*) Sources: al-Taqyid, fols. 199a–199b; al-Ibar, 3/318; Tabaqat al-Subki, 5/327-328; Tabaqat al-Isnawi, 1/94-95; Shadharat al-Dhahab, 3/382.