The Life of Ibn Ḥanbal. Ibn al-Jawzi

ibn ʿAbd Allāh, meaning al-Ṭaḥḥān (the miller), and Abū l-Aḥwaṣ, Mālik ibn Anas, and Ḥammād ibn Zayd all died in ’79. Mālik died shortly before Ḥammād. That was the year I started studying Hadith. I remember we were gathered at the door of Hushaym’s house and he was dictating either Funerals or Rites”²⁹—I can’t recall which he said—“when a man coming from Basra said that Ḥammād ibn Zayd was dead.” 4.8

      [Ṣāliḥ:] I heard my father say: “I began learning when I was sixteen. The first teacher I heard was Hushaym, in ’79. In that same year, Ibn al-Mubārak came to Baghdad for the last time. I went to his circle but they told me that he had left for Tarsus.³⁰ He died in ’81. I spent ’79 writing down the Hadith reports that Hushaym was teaching us. We continued with him in ’80, ’81, and ’83, when he died, after dictating the Book on Pilgrimage, which had about a thousand Hadith reports, some interpretation of the Qurʾan, the Book on Judgeship, and some smaller things.”³¹ 4.9

      I said I supposed that he had written three thousand reports in all.

      “More,” he said. He continued: “I remember we were gathered at Hu-shaym’s door and he was dictating Funerals when we heard that Ḥammād ibn Zayd had died.

      “I also heard Hadith from ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khālid Abī l-Ḥasan al-ʿAbsī in ’82, before Hushaym died.

      “I also heard Hadith from ʿAlī ibn Mujāhid al-Kābulī, who was from Rey and was called Abū Mujāhid. That was the year I made my first trip. ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus reached Kufa a few days after I left. That was in ’82.

      “My first trip to Basra was in ’86. In ’87 I went to find Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah. We were too late to see Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ before he died. That was the year I went on pilgrimage for the first time. I wrote down Hadith from Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd and prayed behind him several times. At the end of the prayer, he would say the taslīm only once.³² If I had had fifty dirhams, I would have gone out to Rey to see Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. Some of the other students went but I couldn’t.”

      He added: “When I went to Kufa, I stayed in a room where I slept with my head resting on a brick. I came down with fever and went back to my mother, God show her mercy!”

      [Aḥmad:] If I had had fifty dirhams I would have gone out to Rey to see Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. Some of my fellow students went but I couldn’t because I had nothing to spend. 4.10

      [Aḥmad:] When I went to Kufa, I stayed in a room where I slept with my head resting on a brick. I came down with fever and went back to my mother. I had never asked her permission to leave. 4.11

      [Al-ʿAbbādānī:] I heard Ibn Ḥanbal say, “I reached ʿAbbādān in ’86 sometime during the last ten days of Rajab. I had gone that year to see al-Muʿtamir. There was a man there involved in Disputation.”³³ 4.12

      “You mean Haddāb?”³⁴

      “Right! Abū l-Rabīʿ was there too, and I wrote down some of his reports.”

      [Aḥmad:] Some days I tried to leave for Hadith sessions as early as I could but my mother would grab me by the clothes and pull me back, saying, “Wait until the call to prayer!” or “Wait until people wake up!” 4.13

      I used to go early to hear Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh and others.

      [Aḥmad:] I was studying with Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān (the cotton merchant) and then left for Wāsiṭ. Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd came asking for me and they told him where I’d gone. 4.14

      “What’s he doing in Wāsiṭ?” he asked.

      “Studying with Yazīd ibn Hārūn.”

      “What for?” asked Yaḥyā.

      [Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān:] By that Yaḥyā meant that Aḥmad knew more than the man he’d gone to study with.

      [Aḥmad:] I’ve visited Basra five times. The first was at the beginning of Rajab 186. That’s when I heard Hadith from al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān. The second time was in ’90. The third was in ’94, after Ghundar died.³⁵ I studied with Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd for six months. In 200 I went again.³⁶ 4.15

      [Ibrāhīm ibn Hāshim:] When Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd came to Baghdad he went to stay with the family of Musayyab. After Jarīr had crossed over to the East Side, the Tigris rose. I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal if he wanted to cross with me. 4.16

      “My mother won’t let me,” he said. So I crossed alone and joined Jarīr’s circle.

      [The author:] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal did hear Hadith from Jarīr, though he did not have the chance to hear very much.

      The flooding mentioned here took place in 186, during the reign of al-Rashīd. The Tigris rose visibly in its banks and reached a point higher than anyone had ever seen before. Al-Rashīd had his family, his womenfolk, and his property put aboard ships.

      Abū ʿAlī l-Baradānī reported: “The governor of Baghdad at the time was al-Sindī ibn Shāhak, called ‘son of Shāhak’ after his mother. To keep people safe, he forbade them to cross the river.”

      [Aḥmad:] I wrote down Hadith dictated for us by Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb while Ibn ʿUyaynah was still alive. 4.17

      [ʿAbd Allāh:] My father walked all the way to Tarsus on foot.³⁷ 4.18

      [Ḥanbal:] I heard Aḥmad say, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī arrived in ’80 [796–97], while Abū Bakr”—meaning Ibn ʿAyyāsh—“was here. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was forty-five and had dyed his beard with henna. I used to see him in the Friday mosque. Then he came to Baghdad. We joined him there, and he dictated six or seven hundred of his reports for us. It was in ’80 that he used to attend Abū Bakr’s circle.” 4.19

      [Ibn Manīʿ:] I heard my grandfather talk about seeing Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal coming back from Kufa. 4.20

      “He was carrying a satchel with some documents in it. I took his hand and said, ‘Today it’s Kufa; tomorrow it’ll be Basra again! How much longer can you keep this up? You’ve already copied thirty thousand Hadith; isn’t that enough?’

      “He said nothing. I asked, ‘What if you reach sixty thousand?’

      “He was still silent.

      “‘A hundred thousand?’

      “‘At that point,’ he replied, ‘a man might claim to know something.’”

      We checked and found that Aḥmad had written down 300,000 reports transmitted by Bahz ibn Asad and ʿAffān alone.

      [Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yāsīn:] I think Ibn Manīʿ may have added “and Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah.”

      [Aḥmad:] I went to Yemen to find Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAqīl, who was bad-tempered and refused to see anyone. By waiting at his door for a day or two, I managed to see him and he recited two Hadith reports for me. He also knew the reports that Wahb had gotten from Jābir, but I never got to hear them because of his bad temper. Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm knew those reports too, but he refused to recite them because Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAqīl was still alive. So I never heard them from anyone. 4.21

      [Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq:] My father was traveling with Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in search of Hadith when their ship was wrecked and they washed up on an island. There they found the following written on a stone: “Soon enough, all men will find themselves in riches or in want. After they are gathered before God Almighty, He will send some to the Garden and some to the Fire.”³⁸ 4.22

      [Khushnām:] I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal