246 – al-Ḥasan ibn Saʿd ibn Idrīs al-Kutāmī al-Qurṭubī
The Imām, erudite scholar, and ḥāfiẓ, Abū ʿAlī al-Kutāmī (1), the Cordovan, the chief scholar of Córdoba.
He received ḥadith from Baqī ibn Makhlad in copious amounts; in Mecca from ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; in Yemen from Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Dabarī and ʿUbayd al-Kishwarī; in Egypt from Yūsuf ibn Yazīd al-Qarāṭīsī and his son; and in Basra from Abū Muslim al-Kajji. He journeyed far and wide, eastward and westward.
He exerted himself in study, avoided blind imitation, and leaned toward the Shāfiʿī school.
Abū al-Walīd ibn al-Faradī said: “Abū ʿAlī used to attend the council of consultation (shūrā). When he saw that legal verdicts there revolved around the Mālikī school, he stopped attending the shūrā.” (2)
Many people heard a great deal from him, and he was a righteous shaykh, though his precision was not of the highest order. (3)
He was born in Córdoba in 248 AH. Ibn al-Faradī goes on to say: “He died on Friday, the Day of ʿArafah, in the year one…”
= 7/12, transmitted through Thabit ibn Muhammad with this same chain. Al-Tirmidhi classed it as a gharib (isolated) hadith. On the same topic there is a report from Abu Sa id al-Khudri recorded by Ibn Majah (no. 4126) through Yazid ibn Sinan—who is weak—from Abu al-Mubarak, an unknown narrator, from Ata, from Abu Sa id. Al-Hakim (4/322) and al-Bayhaqi (7/13) likewise transmitted it through Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Malik al-Dimashqi, from his father, from Ata, from Abu Sa id.
Yazid, the father of Khalid, is weak. Another supporting report comes from Ubadah ibn al-Samit, cited by Tammam in his Fawa id and by al-Diya al-Maqdisi in al-Ahadith al-Mukhtara, fol. 65; its chain contains an unknown narrator. The hadith is therefore judged hasan (good).
(*) Tarikh ulama al-Andalus 1/110; al-Ansab 10/351; Tadhkirat al-huffaz 3/870; al-Ibar 2/225; al-Wafi bi-l-wafayat 12/27; Tabaqat al-huffaz 356; Shadharat al-dhahab 2/329.
(1) The autograph reads al-Kattani, a scribal error. The correct form is al-Katami, with dumma on the kaf, fatha on the initial ta, and ending with a mim; the nisba refers to Katama, a Berber tribe that settled in the Maghrib. See al-Ansab 10/351.
(2) Tarikh ulama al-Andalus 1/110.
(3) Ibid.