- Al-Marwazī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥajjāj
The Imām, exemplar, jurist, ḥadīth scholar, Shaykh al-Islām—Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Marwazī—was a resident of Baghdad and a close companion of Imām Aḥmad. His father came from Khwārazm, while his mother was from Marw.
He was born about the year 200 AH.
He transmitted ḥadīth from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, to whom he kept constant company, and he was regarded as the most distinguished of Aḥmad’s students. He also narrated from Hārūn ibn Maʿrūf, Muḥammad ibn al-Minhāl al-Darīr, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar al-Qawārīrī, Surayj ibn Yūnus, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Rizmah, and many others.
Among those who related from him were Abū Bakr al-Khallāl, Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn al-Walīd, Muḥammad ibn Makhlad al-ʿAṭṭār, ʿAbd Allāh al-Khiraqī—the father of the jurist Abū al-Qāsim—Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥadhdhāʾ, and others besides them.
Al-Khallāl said: “Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Rāshidī informed us: I heard Isḥāq ibn Dāwūd say, ‘I do not know anyone who upheld the cause of Islam more steadfastly than Abū Bakr al-Marwazī.’” (1)
Abū Bakr ibn Ṣadaqah remarked, “I have never known anyone who defended the religion of Allah more zealously than al-Marwazī.” (2)