278 – Ibn Lubābah, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿUmar al-Qurṭubī
The leading Mālikī authority, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿUmar ibn Lubābah al-Qurṭubī, a client of the household of ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿUthmān.
He transmitted from ʿAbd al-Aʿlā ibn Wahb, Abān ibn ʿĪsā, Aṣbagh ibn Khalīl, al-ʿUtbī, and Ibn Ṣabbāḥ.
He likewise heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ from Yaḥyā ibn Muzayn, the companion of Muṭarrif ibn ʿAbd Allah.
Leadership in the school ultimately settled upon him.
Ibn al-Faradī said: “He was a preserver of the historical reports of al-Andalus; he possessed a share of knowledge in grammar and poetry, and he led the prayer in Córdoba.”
A large number of people narrated from him, yet he had no real expertise in ḥadith; he merely conveyed meanings in paraphrase.
He died in Shaʿbān of the year 314 AH, at the age of ninety.
Those who narrated from him include ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Bājī.
= mâ lahu: it can be vocalised in several ways: (1) with a fatḥa on the initial alif and on the bā’ (the letter “with one dot”), while the intervening rā’ carries a kasra; (2) with a fatḥa on the first two letters and nunation on the final bā’; and, in Abū Dharr’s transmission, with a fatḥa on all the letters.
Those who treat it as a verb understand it to mean “he felt a need” or “he realised (something).” One says ʾaraba when a person becomes discerning; hence he is described as arīb (intelligent).
Another opinion is that it means “he marvelled at his eagerness.”
A third view takes it as an imprecation: “may his ʾarāb (limbs) fall off,” similar to ʿUmar’s saying, ʾarabat ʿan badanik (“may your ʾarāb be severed from your body”).
Those who regard it as a noun explain it as “a need that brought him,” with the particle mâ considered pleonastic. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ rejected Abū Dharr’s reading, whereas Ibn al-Athīr defended it, taking the word to mean “a man of experience and knowledge.”
(*) Bibliography: Tārīkh ʿUlamāʾ al-Andalus, 2/34-35; Jadhwat al-Muqtabis, 98; Bughyat al-Multamis, 144; al-ʿIbar, 2/159-160; al-Dībāj al-Mudhhab, 2/189-191; Nafḥ al-Ṭīb, 3/171; Shadharāt al-Dhahab, 2/269.