69 – Kurbuzan ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Harithī (1)

He was a hadith scholar, exceptionally long-lived and one of the last authorities of his generation. His full name is Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Harithī, originally from Basra and later resident in Baghdad. His nickname was “Kurbuzan,” with the letter rāʾ coming immediately after the kāf.

He heard hadith from Yahyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Muʿādh ibn Hishām, Sālim ibn Nūḥ, Wahb ibn Jarīr, and a number of others.

Those who narrated from him include Ibn Ṣāʿid, Muhammad ibn Makhlad, Ismaʿīl al-Ṣaffār, Hamzah al-Hāshimī, Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Bakhtarī, ʿAbd Allah ibn Isḥāq al-Khurāsānī, and several more.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: “I wrote down narrations from him together with my father. The critics spoke against him; I asked my father about him and he said, ‘He is a shaykh.’” (2)

Al-Dāraqutnī remarked, “He is not strong.”

I (the author) say: He died on the Day of Sacrifice (ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā) in 271 AH, having passed ninety years of age.

As for the vocalization of the name Kurbuzan: the kāf is pronounced with ḍamma, followed by a quiescent rāʾ, then a bāʾ also with ḍamma, and finally a zāy. (3)