Have you not heard the news of the Elect—Abu Ḥātim, the most learned of all mankind? (1)

His Son

129 – ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Abū Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Idrīs—
that erudite scholar and ḥadith master, known by the kunya Abū Muḥammad.

He was born in 240 AH—or, some say, 241 AH.

Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Rāzī, the preacher, wrote a biographical sketch of Ibn Abī Ḥātim in which he said, “May Allah have mercy on him; Allah clothed him in light and dignity, and anyone who looked at him was gladdened.”

I heard him say, “My father set out with me in the year 255 AH, while I had not yet reached puberty. When we reached Dhū’l-Ḥulayfa (2) I experienced my first seminal emission, and my father rejoiced, for I had now reached the age at which the great pilgrimage of Islam becomes incumbent. That very year I heard ḥadith from Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muqriʾ (3).”

I say: He also heard from Abū Saʿīd al-Ashajj, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafa, al-Zaʿfarānī, Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, ʿAlī ibn al-Mundhir al-Ṭarīqī (4), Aḥmad ibn Sinān, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Aḥmasī (5), Ḥajjāj ibn al-Shāʿir, and Muḥammad