Biography of the Author

He was the ascetic imam, hadith master, man of letters, and educator Abū Bakr Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Ubayd ibn Sufyān ibn Qays, al-Qurashī, al-Baghdādī, the client of the Umayyads, al-Baghdādī, al-Hanbalī. He was born in Baghdad in 208 AH, at a time when the city was a center of learning and governance, inhabited by scholars and hadith narrators and frequented by students and dignitaries.

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā grew up in a household of learning and hadith transmission. His father, Muhammad ibn Ubayd, was a well-known hadith transmitter who narrated from Hushaym ibn Bashīr, Jarīr ibn Abd al-Hamīd, Sufyān ibn Uyayna, and others. Al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī included his biography in The History of Baghdad, 2/370. His father therefore directed him, while he was still at the age of discernment, to attend scholarly circles, learn from scholars, and receive hadith from its narrators.

Since his native city attracted the attention of students and scholars and was a destination for hadith transmitters and narrators, he had no need to travel in pursuit of knowledge. The various branches of learning were gathered there, sparing him the need to journey, as he benefited instead from the scholars who traveled to Baghdad. He heard hadith from al-Bukhārī, al-Tirmidhī, and others of their generation, and the number of his teachers reached into the hundreds, as will be discussed below.

The hadith master Ibn Abī al-Dunyā studied Quranic recitation under the imam and hadith master Khalaf ibn Hishām, the Quran reciter.