98 – Ibn al-Najjār, Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd ibn Ḥasan al-Baghdādī*
An imām, ḥāfiẓ, and outstanding scholar; the leading muhaddith of Iraq and chronicler of his age, devoted to the faith—Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd ibn Ḥasan ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Maḥāsin al-Baghdādī, famous as Ibn al-Najjār.
Birth: 578 AH.
His first audition was in 588 AH, and it was slight. His formal entrance into the quest for knowledge came while he was still young, in 593 AH. He then heard ḥadīth from Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn Kulayb, Yaḥyā ibn Bawsh, Dhākir ibn Kāmil, al-Mubārak ibn al-Maʿṭūsh, Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, the pupils of Ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, the Judge of the Maristān, then the pupils of Ibn Nāṣir and of Abū al-Waqt; afterward he joined the circles of the students of Ibn al-Baṭṭī and of Shahdah.
He recited the ten canonical readings of the Qur’an, and other modes as well, to Abū Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Sukaynah and to several others.
He travelled to Isfahan, where he received ḥadīth from ʿAyn al-Shams ath-Thaqafiyyah and the scholars present there; then to Herat, where he heard from Abū Rūḥ ʿAbd al-Muʿizz ibn Muḥammad; and to
(*) Yaqut, Muʿjam al-udabaʾ (Dar al-Maʾmun), vol. 19, pp. 49–51, bio. 13; Ibn al-Shiʿar al-Mawsili, ʿUqud al-juman fi shuʿaraʾ hadha al-zaman (Asʿad Efendi MS 2327), vol. 6, fol. 217b; al-Husaini, Sila al-takmila, fol. 35; al-Hawadith al-jamiʿa (attributed to Ibn al-Futi), p. 205, bio. 707; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam (Aya Sofya MS 3013), vol. 20, fols. 42–43; Tadhkirat al-huffaz, vol. 4, pp. 1428–1429, bio. 1140; al-ʿIbar, vol. 5, p. 180; Duwal al-Islam, vol. 2, p. 113; al-Dhahabi, al-Mukhtasar al-muhtaj ilayh min Tarikh Ibn al-Dubaythi, vol. 1, p. 137, bio. 268; al-Safadi, al-Wafi bil-wafayat, vol. 5, pp. 9–11, bio. 1963; Ibn Hajar, Fawat al-wafayat, vol. 4, pp. 36–37, bio. 494; al-Subki, Tabaqat al-shafiʿiyya al-kubra, vol. 8, pp. 98–99, bio. 1093; al-Asnawi, Tabaqat al-shafiʿiyya, vol. 2, pp. 502–503, bio. 1199; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya, vol. 13, p. 169; al-ʿAsjad al-masbuk, pp. 539–540; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat al-shafiʿiyya (Paris MS 2102), fol. 69; al-Nujum al-zahira, vol. 6, p. 355, where his honorific is misprinted as “Majd al-Din” instead of “Muhibb al-Din”; Ibn ʿAbd al-Hadi, Muʿjam al-shafiʿiyya, fol. 58; al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-huffaz, p. 499, bio. 1108; Shadharat al-dhahab, vol. 5, p. 226.