65 – Makhlad ibn al-Ḥusayn, Abū Muḥammad al-Azdī * (S)

He was an eminent imam and leading authority, known as the Shaykh of the frontier towns. He was Abū Muḥammad al-Azdī al-Muhallabī, originally from Basra and later residing in Maṣṣīṣah.

He narrated from Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, Hishām ibn Ḥassān, Yūnus ibn Yazīd, al-Awzāʿī, and others.

Those who narrated from him include Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad, al-Ḥasan ibn al-Rabīʿ, Abū Ṣāliḥ Maḥbūb al-Farrāʾ, al-Musayyab ibn Wāḍiḥ, Mūsā ibn Ayyūb, and many others.

Aḥmad al-ʿIjlī said, “He is trustworthy, a righteous and intelligent man.”

Abū Dāwūd remarked, “He was the wisest man of his age.”

It is related that the caliph al-Rashīd asked him, “What kinship is there between you and Hishām ibn Ḥassān?”

He replied, “He is the father of my brothers”—meaning that he avoided saying, “my mother’s husband.”

Sunaid ibn Dāwūd reported: “I heard Makhlad ibn al-Ḥusayn say, ‘Whenever Allah urges His servants to do something, Iblīs confronts it in one of two ways—and he does not care which of the two succeeds: either by pushing them to excess in it or by causing them to fall short of it.’”

It was said that Makhlad died in 191 AH; others said he died in 196 AH.

A few of his narrations appear in the introduction to Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.