105 – Al-Qāsim ibn Mālik, Abū Jaʿfar al-Muzanī (Kh., M., T., S., Q)
A leading imām, ḥadith scholar, and transmitter, Abū Jaʿfar al-Muzanī was from Kūfah.
He narrated from ʿĀṣim ibn Kulayb, Ḥuṣayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Mukhtār ibn Fulful, and Ayyūb ibn ʿĀʾidh.
Among those who transmitted from him are Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAmr al-Nāqid, Abū Khaythamah, Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Jarmī, Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqi, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah, and others.
Aḥmad al-ʿIjlī declared him reliable.
Both al-Bukhārī and Muslim included his report in their two Ṣaḥīḥ collections (1).
Abū Ḥātim said, “He is not to be taken as proof” (2).
Zakariyyā al-Sājī said: “Weak.”
I say: There is no basis for deeming him weak; his precision is equal to that of Ghundar (3).
He died in the early 190s AH.
All of the major compilers narrated from him, except Abū Dāwūd.
(*) Tarikh Ibn Maʿin, p. 482; Tabaqat Ibn Saʿd 6:390; al-Tarikh al-Kabir 7:171; al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil 7:121; Tahdhib al-Kamal, fol. 1116; Tadhhib al-Tahdhib 3:150/2; Mizan al-Iʿtidal 3:378; al-Kashif 2:393; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib 7:332; Khulasa Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 313.
(1) Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar states in the introduction to Fath al-Bari (p. 435) that this narrator appears in al-Bukhari with only one hadith, which al-Bukhari dispersed across the chapters on Hajj, Holding Fast to the Sunnah, and Expiations. The isnad runs: from al-Juʿayid b. ʿAbd al-Rahman, from al-Saʾib b. Yazid, who said: “The saʿ of the Prophet ﷺ measured a mudd and one-third by today’s standard mudd.” Al-Saʾib had carried that saʿ during the Prophet’s final illness. Al-Bukhari also brought a corroborating chain from al-Saʾib in the book of Hajj.
(2) Abu Hatim’s exact wording in al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil (7:122) is: “His hadith is acceptable (salih), though not strong.” Ibn Hajar (Muqaddima, p. 435) also reports that Yahya b. Maʿin, Ahmad, Abu Dawud, and others declared him reliable.
(3) The person meant is Muhammad b. Jaʿfar, whose biography appears on p. 98 of this volume.