46 – Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Kathīr al-Dawraqī* (M, D, T, Q)
A hadith master, leading imam, meticulous critic, and author, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAbdī. He was the brother of the ḥadith scholar Yaʿqūb and the father of the reliable traditionist ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad.
The nisba “al-Dawraqī” refers to the trade of selling Dawraq-style caps.
Their father, Ibrāhīm ibn Kathīr, was among the devout ascetics. It was said that in those days anyone who practiced asceticism was called “Dawraqī.”
Aḥmad heard hadith from Hushaym ibn Bashīr, Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, Ibn ʿUlayyah, Wakīʿ, Ibn Fuḍayl, Yazīd ibn Hārūn, Isḥāq al-Azraq, Bahz ibn Asad, and many others.
In transmission he even descended to narrate from ʿAffān, Abū Salamah al-Tabūdhakī, and Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī.
Among those who reported from him were Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, al-Haytham ibn Khalaf al-Dūrī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Badr al-Bāhilī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, Ibn Ṣāʿid, Baqī ibn Makhlad, Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, and Ibn Abī al-Dunyā.
He was a vigilant ḥāfiẓ and an accomplished author.