—namely, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Naṣr al-Tirmidhī, the Shāfiʿī ascetic. He was born in 201 AH. He travelled in pursuit of knowledge and heard hadith from Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr, Yūsuf ibn ʿAdī, Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣīnī, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī, ʿUbayd Allāh al-Qawārīrī, and others. He studied jurisprudence with the disciples of al-Shāfiʿī and held an independent opinion within the school.

Among those who transmitted from him are Aḥmad ibn Kāmil, Ibn Qāniʿ, Abū Bakr ibn Khallād, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, and a number of others. Al-Dāraquṭnī said, “He is reliable, trustworthy, and devout.”

Ibrāhīm ibn al-Sarī al-Zajjāj reported that Abū Jaʿfar received a monthly stipend of four dirhams, with which he supported himself, and that he never asked anyone for anything. (1)

Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Barbarī said: “Abū Jaʿfar told me that he subsisted for about fifteen days on five kernels. He added, ‘I possessed nothing else; with them I bought a single turnip.’” (2)

Shaykh Muḥy al-Dīn al-Nawawī relates that Abū Jaʿfar categorically affirmed the purity of the Prophet’s hair ﷺ. The majority of our school’s scholars hold otherwise. I say: every Muslim is obliged to be certain of its purity, for it is authentically established that when the Prophet ﷺ had his head shaved, he distributed his blessed hair among his Companions, thereby honoring them. (3)