301 – Ibn Manzur, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad
The judge of Seville, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad was the son of the judge Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Manzur al-Qaysī, a Mālikī scholar from Seville. A leading jurist and a dignified transmitter of hadith, he hailed from a family distinguished for learning and honor.
He reported hadith from his father and from their cousin, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā ibn Manzur.
Ibn Bashkuwāl studied under him but erred in his genealogy, treating him as a son of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Manzur, the transmitter of the Ṣaḥīḥ from Abū Dharr (1). Abū Jaʿfar Ibn ʿAmayrah repeated the same mistake.
He died in 520 AH at the age of eighty-four. He was one of the transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ, which Abū Bakr ibn al-Jadd, the hadith master, received from him through direct audition.
(*) Al-Sila, 1/78; Tarikh al-Islam, 4:240/1.
(1) Abu Dhar ʿAbd b. Ahmad b. Muhammad b. ʿAbd Allah al-Harawi—his nisba refers to Harat, one of the most famous Khurasani cities, located in the northern part of today’s Afghanistan. It was opened by al-Ahnaf b. Qays during the caliphate of ʿUthman. Its inhabitants are distinguished Persians alongside a number of Arabs, among them this Abu Dhar. His biography has already been given in volume 17, no. 370. He studied under al-Mustamli, al-Hamawi and al-Kushmihani, and al-Bukhari’s text relies on their recensions. He heard the book from al-Hamawi in Harat in 373 AH, from al-Mustamli in Balkh in 374 AH—completing the audition in 375 AH—and from al-Kushmihani in Kushmihani in 489 AH.
A multitude too great to enumerate transmitted from Abu Dhar. Among the best-known eastern lines for Sahih al-Bukhari is the narration of his son Abu Maktum ʿIsa b. Abu Dhar. Many Andalusians also heard it from him. The principal western chains relied on by later scholars are those of the qadi Abu al-Walid al-Baji, Abu al-Abbas al-Udhri, Abu ʿAbd Allah b. Shurayh al-Muqri, and Abu ʿAbd Allah b. Mandzur al-Qaysi.
See Barnamaj al-Wadi Ashi, p. 189; Barnamaj al-Tujibi, p. 75; Fihrist Ibn Khayr, p. 94; Ifadat al-Nasi h, pp. 39–45.