154 – Ibn Zabr ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Rabiʿah al-Rabaʿī
The Imām, scholar, ḥadith expert, jurist, and judge of Damascus: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Rabiʿah ibn Sulaymān ibn Zabr al-Rabaʿī, originally from Baghdad.
He was born in 255 AH.
He studied extensively with ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, Abū Bakr al-Ṣāghānī, Abū Dāwūd al-Sijzī, Ḥanbal ibn Isḥāq, Yūsuf ibn Muslim, ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Shākir, and their peers. He reported prolifically, yet only from what he had accurately verified.
Among those who transmitted from him were his son Abū Sulaymān Muḥammad, al-Dāraquṭnī, Aḥmad ibn al-Qāḍī al-Mayānajī, ʿUmar ibn Shāhīn, Muḥammad ibn Ahmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, and others.
Al-Khaṭīb said, “He was not reliable.” ⦗1⦘
ʿAbd al-Ghanī relates: I heard al-Dāraquṭnī say, “I entered upon Abū Muḥammad ibn Zabr when I was still a youth and found him dictating a ḥadith—the chain of transmission came from one booklet while the text (matn) was taken from another. He thought I would not notice.” ⦗2⦘
Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Musabbiḥī said: “Ibn Zabr assumed office—and he was among the residents of …”