Waki' ibn al-Jarrah

(Redirected from Wakee ibn al-Jarrah)

Abū Sufyān Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ ibn Malīḥ al-Ruʾāsī al-Kilābī al-Kufī (745/47–812) was a prominent hadith scholar based in Kufa. He was one of the principal teachers of the major Sunni Muslim jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

Waki' ibn al-Jarrah
Personal
Born745–747
Died812 (aged 65–66)
ReligionIslam
ChildrenSufyan
DenominationSunni
JurisprudenceHanafi[1][2]
Main interest(s)Hadith
Notable work(s)al-Sunan, al-Marifa Wa al-Tarikh, al-Zuhd

Origins

edit

Waki was born in Kufa,[3] or in the village of Ustuwa near Nishapur,[4] in 128/129 AH (745–747 CE).[5] His father al-Jarrah ibn Malih belonged to the Ubayd ibn Ru'as clan of the Banu Kilab tribe and was born in Soghdia, while his mother, a daughter of Amra ibn Shaddad ibn Thawr of the same clan, was born in Bukhara;[4][6] the Ubayd ibn Ru'as had been settled in Kufa following the Muslim conquest of Iraq in the 630s.[7] The family was well off and al-Jarrah was the supervisor of the bayt al-darb (mint) at Rayy,[4] before being appointed head of the bayt al-mal (treasury) in Baghdad under the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809).[3][4]

Career

edit

Schooled in the Islamic religious sciences, especially the hadith (traditions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad), Waki became a leading traditionist (muhaddith) in his hometown, known for transmitting numerous hadiths based on his memorizations.[8][9] Despite the errors of transmission attributed to him, Waki was generally regarded as the best muhaddith of his time.[3] His refusal of an appointment as qadi (head judge) by Harun al-Rashid out of concern of dependence on the state further contributed to his reputation for piety and ascetism.[3]

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani has mentioned a long list of his teachers and students in his work Tahdhib al-tahdhib. He transmitted hadiths on the authority of the earlier Muslim scholars Isma'il ibn Abi Khalid, Ikrima ibn Ammar, al-Awza'i, al-A'mash, and Malik ibn Anas, as well as his father.[3][9] Al-Dhahabi in his Siyar a`lam al-nubala has listed the names of about 20 teachers of Waki out of which the best known were Sufyan al-Thawri, Shu'ba ibn al-Ḥajjāj and Ibn Jurayj.[10] He was among the most important teachers of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, founder and namesake of the Hanbali school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence (fiqh).[11] Waki himself was classified as a follower of the Hanafi fiqh of Sunni Islam.[12]

Waki built a mosque in Kufa, installing as its imam a tribesman of his, Humayd ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Humayd al-Ru'asi.[4]

Death and descendants

edit

On his return from the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), Waki died in the Fayd oasis in 197 AH (812).[5] His son Sufyan was also a Kufan traditionist, though of poor reputation. Sufyan died at an old age in 861.[13][14]

Literary works

edit

Although Waki was popularly held to have never possessed a book, he authored a number of works:[3]

  • Tafsir al-Quran
  • al-Sunan
  • al-Marifa Wa al-Tarikh
  • al-Musannaf (cited by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani)[3]
  • al-Zuhd (a copy of which is preserved in the al-Zahiriyah Library Library of Damascus)[3]
  • Kitab al-salat, of which just one page survived on a papyrus leaf[15]

References

edit
  1. ^ M. Fethullah Gülen (2009). The Messenger of God: Muhammad. Tughra Books. p. 316. ISBN 9781597846394. Waki' ibn Jarrah, who was brought up in the school of Abu Hanifa and was a tutor of Imam Shafi'i
  2. ^ Nimrod Hurvitz (2002). The Formation of Hanbalism: Piety into Power. Routledge. p. 51. ISBN 9781136753138. For example, Yahya b. Sa'id al-Qattan and Waki' b. al-Jarrah (d. 196) are referred to as Hanafis
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Khoury 2002, p. 101.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ: Biographical Reports". Al-Ikhbar: Translations of Classical Arabic Texts. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  5. ^ a b Rosenthal 1989, p. 200, note 242.
  6. ^ Szilagyi 2009, p. 148, note 64.
  7. ^ Caskel 1966, p. 560.
  8. ^ Salem 2016, p. 21, note 64.
  9. ^ a b Spectorsky 2013, p. 87.
  10. ^ Al-Dhahabi. Siyar a'lam al-nubala, Volume 9. p. 143.
  11. ^ Spectorsky 2013, pp. 86–87.
  12. ^ Hurvitz 2002, p. 51.
  13. ^ Rosenthal 1989, p. 176, note 66.
  14. ^ Blankinship 1993, p. 134, note 726.
  15. ^ Tillier, Mathieu; Vanthieghem, Naïm (2018-09-30). "Une œuvre inconnue de Wakīʿ b. al-Ǧarrāḥ (m. 197/812 ?) et sa transmission en Égypte au IIIe/IXe siècle". Arabica. 65 (5–6): 675–700. doi:10.1163/15700585-12341510. ISSN 0570-5398. S2CID 195465795.

Bibliography

edit