one of you sees someone who is above him in wealth and physical stature, let him look to one who is below him in wealth and physical stature.” ⦗1⦘
29 – Rajāʾ ibn Murajjā ibn Rāfiʿ al-Marwazī (Abū Dāwūd; Ibn Mājah)
It is also said: Rajāʾ ibn Murajjā ibn Rajāʾ ibn Rāfiʿ, the imam, ḥāfiẓ, critic, and author, Abū Muḥammad al-Marwazī; some further say: al-Samarqandī.
It is likewise reported that his kunya was Abū Aḥmad, so perhaps he was known by both.
Birth: after 180 AH.
He received ḥadīth from al-Naḍr ibn Shumayl, Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥakīm, Qabīṣah, Abū Nuʿaym, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid, Salamah ibn Ibrāhīm, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rajāʾ al-Ghudānī, Abū al-Yamān, and many others in Khurāsān, the Ḥijāz, Iraq, and Syria.
Those who narrated from him include Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Mājah, and Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Shaybah.
(1) Its transmitters are trustworthy. Al-Bukhari also recorded the hadith (11/276, Book of Heart-Softening Reports) through Ismail b. Abi Uways, from Malik, from Abu al-Zinad with this chain. Muslim transmitted it as well (no. 2963, Book of Zuhd) by two routes via al-Mughira b. Abd al-Rahman al-Hizami, from Abu al-Zinad, with the wording: “When any of you sees someone who surpasses him in wealth or physical form, let him look at someone below him—someone over whom he has been preferred.” It was likewise reported by Abd al-Razzaq and, through him, by Muslim, from Maʿmar, from Hammam b. Munabbih, from Abu Hurayra. Muslim (no. 2962), Ahmad (2/254, 482), al-Tirmidhi (2513) and Ibn Majah (4142) also narrated it, all through Abu Muʿawiya and Wakiʿ, both from al-Aʿmash, from Abu Salih, from Abu Hurayra, who quoted the Messenger of Allah ﷺ as saying: “Look at those who are below you and do not look at those above you, for that is more likely to keep you from disparaging Allah’s favour.” The term “izdraʾ” means to despise, diminish or fault.
(*) For biographical data see: al-Tarikh al-Saghir 2/388; al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil 3/503; Tabaqat al-Hanabila 1/155–156; Tahdhib al-Kamal, p. 415; Tarikh Baghdad 8/410; Tadhhib al-Tahdhib 1/225/1; Tadhkirat al-Huffaz 2/542–543; al-Ibr 1/454; Ibn Kathir, al-Tarikh 11/4; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib 3/269–270; Tabaqat al-Huffaz, p. 238; Khulasa Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 117; Shadharat al-Dhahab 2/120.