- Qabisa ibn Dhuʿayb ibn Ḥalḥalah al-Khuzaʿi al-Madani
The eminent imam and jurist, Abu Saʿid al-Khuzaʿi—originally from Medina and later of Damascus—who also served as vizier.
He was born in the Year of the Conquest, 8 AH.
His father, Dhuʿayb ibn Ḥalḥalah—the man who tended the Prophet’s sacrificial camels—died in the final days of the Prophet ﷺ. Qabisa was then, it is said, brought before the Prophet, who prayed for him, though the child was too young to remember it.
He transmitted hadith from Abu Bakr—if the report is sound—and from ʿUmar, Abu al-Dardaʾ, Bilal, ʿAbd al-Raḥman ibn ʿAwf, Tamim al-Dari, ʿUbadah ibn al-Ṣamit, and others.
Among those who narrated from him were his son Ishaq, Makḥul, Rajaʾ ibn Ḥaywah, Abu al-Shaʿthaʾ Jabir ibn Zayd, Abu Qilabah, al-Zuhri, Ismaʿil ibn ʿUbayd Allah, Harun ibn Riʾab, and many others.
He was in charge of sealing state documents and overseeing the postal service for Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik. He lost an eye on the Day of al-Ḥarrah, and owned a well-known house at Bab al-Barid (1).
Muhammad ibn Saʿd (2) gave him the kunya Abu Ishaq and said, “His father witnessed the Conquest and was—”
(*) Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā, vol. 5, p. 176; vol. 7, p. 447. Khalīfah, al-Ṭabaqāt, no. 2916. al-Bukhārī, al-Tārīkh, vol. 7, p. 174. Ibn Qutaybah, al-Maʿārif, p. 447. Yaʿqūb b. Sufyān, al-Maʿrifah wa-l-taʾrīkh, vol. 1, pp. 404, 557. Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, vol. 3, part 2, p. 125. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Istīʿāb, no. 2100. al-Shīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ, p. 62. Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, vol. 14, p. 197 a. Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-ghābah, vol. 4, p. 191. al-Nawawī, Tahdhīb al-asmāʾ wa-l-lugāt, part 1 of vol. 2, p. 56. al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, no. 1121. al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-ḥuffāẓ, vol. 1, p. 57; Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 3, p. 290; al-ʿIbar, vol. 1, p. 101; Tadhhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. 3, p. 154 a. Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-l-nihāyah, vol. 8, p. 313; vol. 9, p. 73. Ibn Fahd, al-ʿIqd al-thamīn, vol. 7, p. 37. Ibn Ḥajar, al-Iṣābah, no. 7271; Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. 8, p. 346. Ibn Taghrī, al-Nujūm al-zāhirah, vol. 1, p. 214. al-Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-ḥuffāẓ, p. 21. Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, Khulāṣat tadhhīb al-tahdhīb, p. 314. Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab, vol. 1, p. 97.
(1) Bab al-Barid was one of the western gates of the Great Mosque of Damascus; the quarter that grew around it took the same name and was, in earlier times, among the city’s most attractive districts. According to Ibn ʿAsākir, the house of Qabīṣah later became the site of the Dār al-Ḥukm. See also Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldan, and Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, vol. 2, map 1.
(2) Al-Ṭabaqāt, vol. 5, p. 176; see also vol. 7, p. 447, and Ibn ʿAsākir, vol. 14, p. 197 b.