49 – ‘Ubayd al-‘Ijl, Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Baghdādī*

The ḥāfiẓ, the imām, the accomplished critic: Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥātim al-Baghdādī, a disciple of Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn.

He related ḥadīths from Dāwūd ibn Rushayd, Yaʿqūb ibn Ḥumayd ibn Kāsib, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmmār, Abū Humām al-Walīd ibn Shujāʿ, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Harawī, and a number of others.

Those who transmitted from him include ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Ṭastī, ʿUthmān ibn Sanaqa(1), Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī, al-Ṭabarānī, and others.

Al-Khaṭīb(2) said: “He was trustworthy, exacting, and a ḥāfiẓ.”

Aḥmad ibn al-Munādī commented: “He was among the earliest scholars noted for his mastery of the Musnad in particular.”

Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī relates: Ibn ʿUqda told us, “We would be present with ʿUbayd while he made selections for us. Once he took the book in his hand, whatever was in his mind would fly away. We spoke to him, yet he would not reply; when he finished we said, ‘We talked to you, but you did not answer us?!’

He replied, ‘When I take the book in my hand, what is in my head takes flight. A Companion’s report crosses my mind, and I need to ponder the isnād of that—’”