49 – Ibn al-Ahmar, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Umawī
The leading ḥadith scholar and principal authority of al-Andalus, a reliable transmitter: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Isḥāq ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiyah, grandson of the Umayyad caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, al-Marwānī, from Córdoba, widely known as Ibn al-Ahmar. He hailed from a household of power and distinction.

He heard ḥadith from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā and others. In the year 295 AH he journeyed east, learning from Abū Khalīfah al-Jumaḥī in Basra; from Ibrāhīm ibn Sharīk, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Marwazī, and Jaʿfar al-Firyābī in Baghdad; and from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī and Abū Yaʿqūb al-Manjaniqī in Egypt.

He travelled widely and reached India as a merchant. He used to say, “I came back from India able to command thirty thousand dinars, then the ship sank and I escaped only by swimming, with nothing whatsoever.” He later returned to al-Andalus, bringing with him al-Nasāʾī’s al-Sunan al-Kabīr, from which the people there received many narrations.

He was a distinguished, trustworthy, long-lived shaykh.

Those who narrated from him include Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥakam, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd, and a group of others—the last of them to pass away were ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rabīʿah and Yūnus ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughīth.

He died in Rajab 358 AH, having reached nearly ninety years of age—may Allah have mercy on him.