al-Dāraquṭnī, the great ḥadīth memorizer, was the unrivaled master of this discipline in his own age—indeed, for a good while before it and long after it, down to our own day.
He heard an immense amount of tradition, gathered, classified, authored, and excelled, bringing abundant benefit. His critical eye was unmatched in analysis, reasoning, selection, and evaluation. He stood alone in his era, a peerless figure, the leading imam of his time in the study of narrators’ names, the science of hidden defects, the principles of criticism and accreditation, the art of composition, the vastness of transmission, and complete mastery of hadith methodology. Among his works is the celebrated grand collection al-Sunan, one of the finest books in its field; none before him produced its like, and none can match it save one who has drawn from his ocean and labored as he did. He also wrote al-ʿIlal, in which he distinguished the sound from the flawed, and the connected from the mursal, the interrupted, and the muʿḍal reports, as well as al-Afrād—a book that none can even comprehend, let alone compile, except those who belong to the ranks of the solitary masters of memorization and the elite critics, [wa-l-jahābidha al-jiyād (the consummate experts)] (1). Besides these he produced other compositions that are like strings of pearls upon necks.
From his youth al-Dāraquṭnī was famed for prodigious retention [wa-l-dhihn al-thāqib al-māhir (and for a keen, accomplished intellect)] (2). He once attended the session of Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār while the latter was dictating ḥadīth to the people, and al-Dāraquṭnī was simultaneously copying from a booklet of ḥadīth. One of the scholars present remarked to him during the gathering, “Your audition is not valid while you are writing.” Al-Dāraquṭnī replied, “My grasp of what is being dictated is unlike yours. Can you recall how many reports he has dictated so far?” The man answered, “No.” Al-Dāraquṭnī said, “He has dictated eighteen ḥadīths up to this moment. The first of them is from So-and-so, from So-and-so…,” and he proceeded to recite all of them with their chains of transmission. The audience was astounded.
Al-Ḥākim Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Naysābūrī said, “Al-Dāraquṭnī never saw anyone the equal of himself.”
Ibn al-Jawzī stated, “Together with his mastery of ḥadīth, he combined knowledge of the variant Qur’ānic readings, grammar, jurisprudence, and poetry, along with leadership, integrity, sound creed, and uprightness.” His death occurred on Tuesday, the seventh of Dhū al-Qaʿdah of this year; he was seventy-nine years and two days old, and he was buried the next day in the cemetery of Maʿrūf al-Karkhī (3).
Ibn Khallikān said, “He traveled to Egypt, where he was honored by the vizier Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar b. al-Faḍl b. Ḥinzābah (4), minister of Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī. The vizier, together with the ḥadīth scholar ʿAbd al-Ghanī, helped him complete his Musnad, through which al-Dāraquṭnī received a large sum of money.”
He further said, “The nisbah ‘al-Dāraquṭnī’ is derived from Dār al-Quṭn, a large quarter of Baghdad.” ʿAbd al-Ghanī b. Saʿīd (5) said: “He did not…"