I said, “He is not one of those who fabricate reports—certainly not. His frivolity with beardless youths was confined to the days of his youth; when he grew old he turned to his own affairs, yet the scandal lingered. He was also one-eyed.
Abū al-ʿAynāʾ (1) recounted: “Some blind men (2) intercepted him and pressed their claim. He said to them, ‘You have no entitlement to anything from the Commander of the Faithful.’ They pleaded, ‘Do not do that, Abū Saʿīd.’ He shouted, ‘To prison, to prison!’ So they were confined. When night came they raised a clamor, and al-Maʾmūn asked, ‘What is that noise?’ It was said, ‘The blind men.’ He said to him, ‘Why have you imprisoned them—because they gave you a kunya?’ He replied, ‘No; I jailed them for hinting that an old man in al-Harbiyya was guilty of sodomy (3).’”
Faḍlak al-Rāzī said, “Dāwūd al-Aṣbahānī and I went to Yaḥyā ibn Aktham with ten questions. He gave an excellent answer to five of them. Then a handsome youth entered, and as soon as he saw him Yaḥyā became flustered and could neither advance nor retreat on any question. Dāwūd said, ‘Let us leave; the man has lost his composure (4).’”
(1) Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Khallād ibn Yāsir, a client of the Hāshimite clan; d. 283 AH/896 CE. His detailed biography will appear in vol. 13, entry 142.
(2) al-aḍrāʾ: plural of ḍarīr, a person who has lost his sight (i.e., the blind).
(3) The episode is related at length in al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh Baghdād, 14:194–95. Through his chain to Abū al-ʿAynāʾ it runs: when Yaḥyā ibn Aktham was put in charge of the charity bureau for the blind, he gave them nothing; they pursued him repeatedly but to no avail, and finally assembled together. As he left the Rusāfa mosque after a court session, they pressed him again; he replied, “You have no allotment from the Commander of the Faithful …,” and so forth.
The Ḥarbiyya was a large, famous quarter of Baghdad by Bāb Ḥarb, near the cemeteries of Bishr al-Ḥāfī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and others. It was named after Ḥarb ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Balkhī, one of Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr’s commanders, but is misprinted as “al-Khurayba” in some copies of Tārīkh Baghdād.
(4) Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, no. 1486.
Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (14:197) and Ibn Khallikān (6:152) cite several reports alleging moral lapses by Yaḥyā ibn Aktham, such as sodomy. These accounts are unlikely to be authentic about so eminent a jurist—an imām qualified for ijtihād—whom the learned caliph al-Maʾmūn entrusted with the judiciary of Baghdad. Moreover, their transmitters are not considered reliable.
Al-ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr remarks in al-Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya …