12 – Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn Ḥayyān, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Madāʾinī
The hadith scholar, Qur’an reciter, and leading imam—Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Madāʾinī—was one of the last surviving elders.
He narrated from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAṭiyyah, Shuʿayb ibn Ḥarb, ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim, Yazīd ibn Hārūn, and others.
Among those who narrated from him were: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd, Abū Bakr ibn Mujāhid, Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār, Khaythamah al-Aṭrābulusī, ʿUthmān ibn al-Sammāk, Ḥamzah al-ʿAqabī (1), Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān al-Ādamī, Abū Sahl al-Qaṭṭān, and others.
Al-Barqānī said, “There is nothing wrong with him,” while al-Dāraquṭnī judged him “weak.”
I (the author) say: he died in 274 AH, having passed the age of one hundred.
Al-Muʾtaman ibn Qumayrah possesses several high-level chains that go through him.
Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muqayyar (2), Abū al-Maʿālī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Shāhid (3), Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Qazzāz (4), and ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar informed us.
(*) Tarikh Baghdad, vol. 2, pp. 398-399; Tadhkirat al-huffaz, vol. 2, p. 603 (at the close of the entry on al-Maimuni); Mizan al-iʿtidal, vol. 3, p. 678; ʿIbar, vol. 2, p. 53; al-Wafi bi-l-wafayat, vol. 4, p. 294; Lisan al-mizan, vol. 5, p. 333; al-Nujum al-zahira, vol. 3, p. 71; Shadharat al-dhahab, vol. 2, p. 166.
(1) al-ʿUqbi—with the ʿayn and the qaf pronounced with fatḥa—is a nisba referring to the district of al-ʿAqaba, located beyond the Nahr ʿIsa and near the Tigris in Baghdad (see Yaqut’s Muʿjam and al-Lubab).
(2) Al-Dhahabi includes his notice in his Mashyakha, manuscript folio 73.
(3) He is Muhammad b. ʿAli b. Muhammad b. ʿAli, the eminent and reliable traditionist, titled ʿAdl al-Kabir, ʿImad al-Din, Abu al-Maʿali, son of the hadith scholar Diyaʾ al-Din b. al-Balsi al-Dimashqi al-Sharuti. He died in mid-Jumada I 711 AH/1311-12 CE. See al-Dhahabi’s Mashyakha, ms. folio 145.
(4) He is Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Abi Bakr b. Muhammad, the aged, ascetic Qurʾan-reciter Abu ʿAbd Allah, known as Ibn al-Qazzaz; he died in 705 AH/1305-06 CE. The author records his entry in his Mashyakha, ms. folio 127.