Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ - Shams al‑Din al‑Dhahabi - (12/408)

Siyar Aʿlām al-NubalāʾShams al‑Din al‑Dhahabi

concerning the following matters: that religion is made up of word and deed, and that the Qur’an is the Speech of Allah.

Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Warrāq said: I heard Ḥāshid ibn Ismāʿīl and another man say, “When Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Bukhārī used to accompany us to the shaykhs of Basra while he was still a lad, he never wrote anything down. After a number of days we said to him, ‘You come along with us yet you do not write—what are you doing instead?’

“Sixteen days later he said, ‘You two have pressed me hard; show me what you have written.’ We produced our notebooks for him, and he added to them more than fifteen thousand hadiths, reciting every one of them from memory. We ended up correcting our own books against his memorization (1).

“Then he said, ‘Do you think I go back and forth for nothing, wasting my days?’ (2) At that point we realized that no one stood ahead of him (3).

“I also heard them say: The knowledgeable people of Basra would run after him in pursuit of hadith while he was still a youth. They would overtake him, seat him along the road, and thousands would gather around him, most of them ready to write from him.

“He was so young that no hair had yet appeared on his face (4).”

Abū Aḥmad ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAdī, the ḥāfiẓ, said: “I heard several shaykhs relate that when Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī arrived in Baghdad, the hadith scholars there heard of him. They gathered together, chose one hundred hadiths, scrambled their texts and their chains—placing the text of one chain with another chain and the chain of one text with another text—and then handed to each man

(1) The expressions hakama al-shayʾa and ahkamahu mean “to consolidate a thing and safeguard it from corruption or error.” (2) The verb form h-d-r occurs as hadira, yahdiru (with the i-vowel) and yahduru (with the u-vowel); its verbal noun is hadran/hadaran, and it signifies “to become null and void.” (3) Tabaqat al-Hanabila, 1:276–277; Tarikh Baghdad, 2:14–15; Tabaqat al-Subki, 2:217; Muqaddimat al-Fath, p. 479. (4) I.e., his facial hair had not yet grown. The report is found in Tabaqat al-Hanabila, 1:277; Tahdhib al-Asmaʾ wa-l-Lughat, 1/1:70; and Tabaqat al-Subki, 2:217.

الأَشْيَاءِ أَنَّ الدِّيْنَ قَوْلٌ وَعملٌ، وَأَنَّ القُرْآنَ كَلاَمُ اللهِ. وَقَالَ مُحَمَّدُ بنُ أَبِي حَاتِمٍ الوَرَّاقُ: سَمِعْتُ حَاشِدَ بنَ إِسْمَاعِيْلَ وَآخَرَ يَقُوْلاَنِ: كَانَ أَبُو عَبْدِ اللهِ البُخَارِيُّ يَخْتلِفُ مَعَنَا إِلَى مَشَايِخِ البَصْرَةِ وَهُوَ غُلاَمٌ، فَلاَ يَكْتُبُ، حَتَّى أَتَى عَلَى ذَلِكَ أَيَّامٍ، فكنَّا نَقُوْل لَهُ: إِنَّك تختلفُ معنَا ولاَ تَكْتُبُ، فَمَا تصنَعُ؟ فَقَالَ لَنَا يَوْماً بَعْد ستَّةَ عشرَ يَوْماً: إِنَّكمَا قَدْ أَكْثَرْتُمَا عَلَيَّ وَأَلْححتُمَا، فَاعْرِضَا عَلَيَّ مَا كَتَبْتُمَا. فَأَخْرجْنَا إِلَيْهِ مَا كَانَ عِنْدنَا، فَزَادَ عَلَى خَمْسَةَ عَشَرَ أَلفِ حَدِيْثٍ، فَقرأَهَا كُلَّهَا عَنْ ظَهرِ القَلْبِ، حَتَّى جَعَلنَا نُحْكِمُ (١) كُتُبَنَا مِنْ حِفْظِهِ. ثُمَّ قَالَ: أَتَرَوْنَ أَنِّي أَختلِفُ هَدْراً (٢) ، وَأُضَيِّعُ أَيَّامِي؟! فَعَرفْنَا أَنَّهُ لاَ يتقدَّمُهُ أَحَدٌ (٣) . قَالَ: وَسَمِعْتُهُمَا يَقُوْلاَنِ: كَانَ أَهْلُ المَعْرِفَةِ مِنَ البَصْرِيِّيْنَ يَعْدُوْنَ خَلْفَهُ فِي طلبِ الحَدِيْثِ وَهُوَ شَابٌّ حَتَّى يغلِبُوهُ عَلَى نَفْسِهِ، وَيُجلسوهُ فِي بَعْضِ الطَّرِيْقِ، فيجتمعُ عَلَيْهِ أَلوفٌ، أَكْثَرهُم مِمَّنْ يَكْتُبُ عَنْهُ. وَكَانَ شَابّاً لَمْ يَخْرُجْ وَجْهُهُ (٤) . وَقَالَ أَبُو أَحْمَدَ عَبْدُ اللهِ بنُ عَدِيٍّ الحَافِظُ: سَمِعْتُ عِدَّةَ مَشَايِخٍ يحكُوْن أَنَّ مُحَمَّدَ بنَ إِسْمَاعِيْلَ البُخَارِيَّ قَدِمَ بَغْدَادَ، فسَمِعَ بِهِ أَصْحَابُ الحَدِيْثِ، فَاجْتَمَعُوا وَعَمَدُوا إِلَى مائَةِ حَدِيْثٍ، فَقلبُوا مُتونهَا وَأَسَانِيْدَهَا، وَجَعَلُوا مَتْنَ هَذَا الإِسْنَادِ هَذَا، وَإِسْنَادَ هَذَا المَتْنِ هَذَا، وَدفعُوا إِلَى كُلِّ

(١) يقال حكم الشئ وأحكمه: استثبته ومنعه من الفساد والخطأ. (٢) هدر يهدر، بالكسر، ويهدر، بالضم، هدرا وهدرا، أي بطل. (٣) " طبقات الحنابلة " ١ / ٢٧٦، ٢٧٧، و" تاريخ بغداد " ٢ / ١٤، ١٥، و" طبقات السبكي " ٢ / ٢١٧، و" مقدمة الفتح ": ٤٧٩. (٤) أي لم ينبت شعر وجهه. والخبر في " طبقات الحنابلة " ١ / ٢٧٧، و" تهذيب الأسماء واللغات " ١ / ٧٠ / ١، و" طبقات السبكي " ٢ / ٢١٧.