Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khallād al-Rāmahurmuzī (?—before 971 CE/360 AH), commonly referred to in medieval literature as
Ibn al-Khallād, was a
hadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
specialist and author who wrote one of the first comprehensive books compiled in
hadith terminologyHadith terminology is the body of terminology which specify the acceptability of the narrations, hadith, attributed to the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad, as well as other early figures of religious significance...
literature,
al-Muḥaddith al-Fāṣil bayn al-Rāwī wa al-Wāʻī.
Biography
Al-Rāmahurmuzī's specific date of birth remains undetermined, but can be approximated based upon the dates of his teachers' deaths, placing his birth roughly 100 years prior to his own death. Therefore, 871/260 is a fairly sound estimate, according to The Encyclopaedia of Islam, based the long life spans generally assumed for early hadith specialists. The name
al-Rāmahurmuzī is an ascription to
Rām-hurmuzRamhormoz is a city in and the capital of Ramhormoz County, Khuzestan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 49,822, in 10,966 families....
a town in
KhūzistānKhuzestan Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq's Basra Province and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahwaz and covers an area of 63,238 km²...
in present-day south-western
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. The significance of Rām-hurmuz was its central location at the intersection of
Ahwāz-History:For a more comprehensive historical treatment of the area, see the history section of Khūzestān Province.-Ancient history:Ahvaz is the anagram of "Avaz" and "Avaja" which appear in Darius's epigraph...
,
Shūshtar-External links:** Hamid-Reza Hosseini, Shush at the foot of Louvre , in Persian, Jadid Online, 10 March 2009, .Audio slideshow: .* .* * , PressTV, 13 June 2010....
, Iṣfahān and
Fārs between the Āb -i Kurdistān and the Gūpāl rivers.
He first began his hadith studies in 903/290, hearing hadith from his father, ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khallād, and Muḥammad ibn ʻAbdillāh al-Ḥaḍarī, Abū al-Ḥuṣayn al-Wādiʻī, Muḥammad ibn Ḥibbān al-Māzinī and others from their generation. He worked as a judge (
qāḍī) for a period of time, although little detail is provided.
Al-DhahabiMuhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qaymaz ibn `Abd Allah, Shams al-Din Abu `Abd Allah al-Turkmani al-Diyarbakri al-Fariqi al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi al-Shafi`i , known as Al-Dhahabi , a Shafi'i Muhaddith and historian of Islam.-Biography:...
described Al-Rāmahurmuzī as "the distinguished
imamAn imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
...who was from the imams of
hadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
and this will be apparent to anyone who reflects upon his work in the
science of hadithHadith studies are a number of religious disciplines used in the study and evaluation of the Islamic hadith by Muslim scholars. It has been described by one hadith specialist, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, as the science of the principles by which the conditions of both the sanad, the chain of...
."
His students include Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ṣaydāwī, al-Ḥasan ibn al-Layth al-Shīrāzī, Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Mardawayh, Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Nahāwandī and numerous others from the inhabitants of
PersiaIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
.
Al-Dhahabi said he was unable to find the date of Al-Rāmahurmuzī's death and speculated it to have been during the 350s AH, between 961 and 971 CE. He then quoted Abū al-Qāsim ibn Mandah as mentioned in his work,
al-Wafayāt, that Al-Rāmahurmuzī lived until almost 971/360 while living in the city of Rām-hurmuz. The Encyclopaedia of Islam specified his death as occurring in 971/360.
Works
Al-Rāmahurmuzī was a poet and a few lines of his poetry were collected in
Yatīmah al-Dahr by
al-ThaʻālabīTha'ālibī [Abu Manşūr 'Abd ul-Malik ibn Mahommed ibn Isma'īl] , Muslim philologist, was born in Nishapur, Iran, and is said to have been at one time a furrier. Although he wrote prose and verse of his own, he was most famous for his anthologies and collections of epigrams...
. Two of his works of prose remain until the present, both concerning the subject of
hadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
.
- al-Muḥaddith al-Fāṣil bayn al-Rāwī wa al-Wāʻī—his most renowned work, is a comprehensive work on the subject of hadith terminology
Hadith terminology is the body of terminology which specify the acceptability of the narrations, hadith, attributed to the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad, as well as other early figures of religious significance...
and biographical evaluation, It is considered by Ibn ḤajrAl-Haafidh Shihabuddin Abu'l-Fadl Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad, better known as Ibn Hajar due to the fame of his forefathers, al-Asqalani due to his family origin , was a medieval Shafiite Sunni scholar of Islam who represents the entire realm of the Sunni world in the field of Hadith...
to be from amongst the first comprehensive works on its subject. ʻAlī al-Qārī-Legacy:One of the great Hanafi masters of hadith and Imams of fiqh, Qur'anic commentary, language, history and tasawwuf, he authored several great commentaries such as al-Mirqat on Mishkat al-masabih in several volumes, a two-volume commentary on Qadi `Iyad's al-Shifa', and a two-volume commentary...
explained that the expression used by Ibn Ḥajr leaves the impression that there were a number of similar works at the time Al-Rāmahurmuzī authored his therefore making difficult the determination of which was the first. The Encyclopaedia of Islam to be the first. Al-Muḥaddith al-Fāṣil influenced all subsequent works in its genre and is available in print, edited by Muḥammad ʻIjāj al-Khaṭīb in Beirut, 1971. Ibn Ḥajr commented that al-Muḥaddith al-Fāṣil did not include all of the relevant disciplines of hadith study. Al-Dhahabi said that he heard this work with an isnād going back to Al-Rāmahurmuzī.
- Amthāl al-Nabī—a collection of about 140 proverb
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
s in the form of hadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
s which has been printed in two editions. The first was edited by Amatulkarim Qureshi in Hyderabad, 1968 and the second by M. M. al-ʻAthamī in Bombay, 1983.
- Rabīʻ al-Mutayyim fī Akhbār al-ʻAshshāq
- al-Nawādir
- Risālah al-Safr
- al-Ruqā wa al-Taʻāzī
- Adab al-Nāṭiq