the charge of zandaqa (heresy).

Others maintained that he actually died while on a journey—Allah knows best.

Another report states that he perished in 155 AH, while still others place his death later than that.

53 – Ḥammād al-Rāwiyah, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Sābūr al-Shaybānī *

He was the erudite scholar and historian, Abū al-Qāsim Ḥammād ibn Sābūr ibn Mubārak al-Shaybānī, their client.

Highly regarded and a drinking companion of al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, he was counted among the very intelligent, a transmitter versed in the annals of men, poetry, and genealogy.

He lived to an advanced age, and the caliph al-Mahdī studied with him.

He died in 156 AH, when he was in his early nineties.

His grasp of grammar was slight, and at times he committed errors in speech.

Another opinion holds that he died during the caliphate of al-Mahdī, around 160 AH.

It is related that al-Walīd ibn Yazīd once asked him, “Why have you been called al-Rāwiyah (the Anthologist)?”

He replied, “Because for every poet you know, and for every poet you confess, Commander of the Faithful, that you do not know, I can recite—and I can declaim for you beginning with each letter of the alphabet—one hundred pre-Islamic odes.”

So they say that the caliph appointed someone to have him recite, until