219 – Ibn Waddāḥ, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Waddāḥ al-Marwānī
The Imām, ḥāfiẓ, and foremost traditionist of al-Andalus together with Baqī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Waddāḥ ibn Baziʿ (1) al-Marwānī, a freedman of the Andalusian ruler ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Dākhil.

He was born in 199 AH.

He studied under Yahyā ibn Maʿīn, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways, Aṣbagh ibn al-Faraj, Zuhayr ibn ʿAbbād, Ḥarmalah, Yaʿqūb ibn Kāsib, Isḥāq ibn Abī Isrāʾīl, Muḥammad ibn Rumḥ, and their contemporaries.

It is also said that he travelled even earlier, during the lifetime of Ādam ibn Abī Iyās, but did not manage to hear anything from him. Thereafter he journeyed to Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, amassing a vast collection of reports.

Among those who transmitted from him are Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Jabbāb, Qāsim ibn Aṣbagh, Muḥammad ibn Ayman, Aḥmad ibn ʿUbādah, Muḥammad ibn al-Miswar, and a host of others.

Ibn Ḥazm said: “He would continue fasting for four consecutive days.”

Ibn al-Farāḍī said: “He was knowledgeable in hadith, keenly aware of its transmission routes and hidden defects; he narrated copiously from the devout worshippers, was pious, ascetic, patient in the dissemination of knowledge, and dignified in his self-restraint, bringing benefit…"