ABU NU`AYM AL-ASBAHANI
by Dr. G.F. Haddad
Abū Nu`aym, Ahmad ibn `Abd Allāh
ibn Ahmad ibn Ishāq ibn Mūsā ibn Mahrān al-Mihrānī al-Asbahānī
or al-Asfahānī al-Ahwal
al-Ash`arī al-Shāfi`ī
(336-430), the Imām, erudite scholar, Sūfī, Shaykh al-Islām,
and major trustworthy hadīth Master. His
first teachers were his grandfather the Sūfī
master Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Bannā' al-Asbahānī
and his father, a hadīth scholar who had travelled all over the Islamic world. Under his
father's direction Abū Nu`aym began his scholarly career very early,
and before the age of ten possessed certificates of narration
transmission from all the major shaykhs of the Islamic world in his
time, obtained for him by his father.
Among them: al-Mu`ammar `Abd Allāh ibn `Umar ibn Shawdhab
in Wāsit, Abū
al-`Abbās al-Asamm
in Naysabūr, Khaythama
ibn Sulaymān al-Atrābulsī
in Shām, Ja`far
ibn Muhammad ibn Nusayr al-Khuldī and Abū Sahl ibn Zyad al-Qattān in Baghdād, Abū Bakr ibn al-Sunni in Daynur,
and others.
Subsequently he took hadīth and narrated
it from and to an innumerable list of shaykhs and students.
Among his shuyūkh: al-Tabarānī,
Abū al-Shaykh, al-Ajurrī,
al-Hākim, and others.
Among his students were al-Khatīb, al-Malīnī, al-Dhakwānī,
Abū al-Fadl Hamd ibn Ahmad al-Haddād,
his brother Abū `Alī
al-Hasan, and others.
Many of Abū Nu`aym's Shaykhs did not certify any other than
him in their lifetime, hence the statement of the hadīth
Scholars that "Abū Nu`aym
possessed chains of transmission that no one else in the world
possessed in his time." Because of the two factors of having received
many of these chains at a very early age and the fact that he lived
almost a hundred years, Abū Nu`aym also became famous for the shortness of
his chains. This is attribute is much prized among hadīth
Scholars in view of the rule that the shorter a chain of transmission
is, the stronger the probability that its narration is error-free.
Hence, Ahmad ibn Hanbal's statement: "The
pursuit of short transmission chains is a Sunna inherited from those
who came before." One drawback of Abū Nu`aym's unique chains is that some of his
shaykhs are unheard-of and therefore of unverifiable reliability.
Abū Nu`aym was assiduous in the pursuit of knowledge
according to the manner of the ascetic scholars. Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn
Mardūyah said of him: "He had no other
sustenance than giving audition (al-tasmī`)
and writing." This quality joined with his superlative intelligence and
early start to make him one of the major hadīth
Masters and compilers in Islām and the
most sought-after hadīth narrator in his
time. Ibn Mardūyah states that even during
the time that he walked home from his mosque gatherings, a student
would be reading a volume of hadīth to him
on the way. Al-Khatīb said: "I did not see
anyone for whom the unqualified term "the hadīth
Master" (al-hāfiz ) was used except
two men: Abū Nu`aym
and Abū Hāzim
al-`Abdawī." Hamza
ibn al-`Abbās al-`Alawī
said: "The hadīth scholars used to say
that the hadīth Master Abū Nu`aym remained
for fourteen years without equal, no one from East to West possessing
any chain of transmission shorter than his, and there was no one
stronger in memorization."
Abū Nu`aym was
Ash`arī
in doctrine as indicated by Ibn `
Asākir's
inclusion of him in the second generation-layer of al-
Ash`arī's students and as stated by Ibn al-
Jawzī in his great history,
al-Muntazam. This is confirmed by
Abū Nu`aym's
doctrinal criticism of Ibn
Mandah when it
is known that the latter narrated anthropomorphist views and his
authoring
al-Radd `alā
al-Hurūfiyya al-Hulūliyya
("Refutation of the Letter-Worshippers Who Believe in Indwelling")
against Ibn
Mandah's belief that the
pronunciation of the Qur'an is uncreated1
Because of this adherence,
Abū Nu`aym was
boycotted by extremist
Hanbalīs in his
time. Al-
Dhahabī narrates the following
incident from Muhammad ibn `Abd al-
Jabbār
al-
Fursānī:
In my childhood I attended Abū
Bakr ibn Abī `Alī
al-Mu`addil's gathering with my father.
When the gathering ended someone said: "If anyone wants to attend Abū Nu`aym's
gathering, let us go!" Abū Nu`aym followed a different doctrine from al-Mu`addil's and was boycotted by the latter's
circle because of that. For there was too much hostile partisanship
between Ash`arīs and Hanbalīs,
leading to dissension. Hearing the man, the hadīth
scholars surrounded him with their pen-knives and he was almost killed.
Al-Dhahabī then
comments: "I say, these are not hadīth
scholars but ignorant transgressors - may Allāh
keep their harm away!"
Abū Nu`aym's extreme mutual enmity with the Hanbalī hadīth
Master Ibn Mandah for the same reasons
gave rise to sharp criticism from both sides. However, the rule
followed by the succeding scholars in this
and every case of mutual disaffection between contemporary rivals (aqrān mutanāfisūn
), is to ignore the attacks of each with regard to the other. Another
problem sometimes raised with respect to Abū
Nu`aym is his narration of a number of
forgeries in Hilyat al-Awliyā', but the scholars have replied that
he always named his narrators, which allows one to assess the
reliability of every report he cites.
Ibn al-
Salāh in his
manual of
hadīth science named
Abū Nu`aym among
the seven
Acholars of highest excellence
in the authorship of works in Islām.2
Abū Nu`aym authored over a hundred works Among them:
* Al-Arba`īn `alā Madhhab al-Mutahaqqiqīn min al-Sūfiyya,
in print
*
Dalā'il
al-Nubuwwa ("The Signs and Proofs of Prophethood"), devoted
entirely to the person of the Prophet Muhammad
, this large work - partly in print - was
expanded by al-
Bayhaqī to seven volumes in
a like-titled work.
* Dhikr Akhbār Asbahān ("Memorial of the Chronicles
of Ispahan"), in print
* Al-Du`afā',
in print
* Fadā'il
al-Khulafā' al-Arba`a
wa Ghayrihim, in print
* Fadīlat
al-`Adilīn min al-Wulāt,
a collection of over forty narrations on just government and the duties
of the governed towards the rulers. Al-Sakhāwī
documented each narration in detail and both the work and its
documentation were published.
* Hilyat
al-Awliyā' wa Tabaqāt
al-Asfiya' ("The Adornment of the
Friends of Allāh awjand
the Biography-Layers of the Pure Ones") in ten volumes, one of the
earliest comprehensive encyclopedias of Sūfī
personalities. The book sold in Abū Nu`aym's lifetime in Naysabūr
for four hundred gold dinars and received
many editions to our time. Ibn al-Jawzī
attacked him for including the Companions in it, then proceeded to
epitomize it in his two-volume Sifat
al-Safwa, in which he studiously
avoided using the words sūfī and tasawwuf.
Ibn Kathīr praised the work as an
illustration of the author's strength in hadīth
narration. Ibn al-Subkī relates that this
book was among Shaykh al-Islām Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī's favorite works. Abū
Nu`aym stated the following in his
introduction:
I have compiled a book that comprises the
names, narrations, and sayings of a number of personalities among the
most eminent verifying Sūfīs and their Imāms, arranged in the order of their
biographical layers (Tabaqāt) and
including those famous for abundant worship together with their
methods. It begins with the time of the Companions, their Successors,
and those who came after them.
* Juz` fī Turuq Hadīth Inna Lillāhi
Tis`atun wa Tis`īna
Isman, in print
* Al-Mahdī.
* Ma`rifat al-Sahāba
wa Fadā'ilihim ("Knowing the
Companions and Their Merits"), in print. This book was the basis of
subsequent similar works by Ibn `Abd al-Barr, Ibn al-Athīr, and Ibn Hajar.
* Musnad
al-Imām Abī Hanīfa, in print
* Al-Mustakhraj
`alā al-Bukhārī
("Additional Narrations Meeting al-Bukhārī's
Criterion"), in print
* Al-Mustakhraj
`alā Muslim ("Aditional
Narrations Meeting Muslim's Criterion"), in print
* Riyādat
al-Abdān, in print
* Al-Shu`arā'
("The Poets").
* Al-Sifāt. Al-Suyūtī mentioned it in his commentary on Sūrat al-Nās in his
book al-Iklīl fī
Istinbāt al-Tanzīl.
* Sifat
al-Janna ("Description of Paradise"), in print
* Tabaqāt
al-Muhaddithīn wal-Ruwāt
("Biography-Layers of the Hadīth Scholars
and Narrators").
* Tasmiyatu
mā Intahā ilaynā min al-Ruwāt
`an al-Fadl ibn Dukayn
`Aliyan, in print
* Tasmiyatu
mā Intahā ilaynā min al-Ruwāt
`an Sa`īd ibn Mansūr
`Aliyan, in print
* Tathbīt
al-Imāma wa Tartīb
al-Khilāfa, in print, a refutation of Shī`ism.
* Al-Tibb al-Nabawī ("Prophetic Medicine").
One of the miraculous gifts bestowed upon Abū Nu`aym was his
banishment from the mosque of Ispahan by a
group of people there. The same people, unhappy with the Sultan Mahmūd ibn Subktukin's
appointment of a certain man as governor for them, ambushed and killed
the man. Later, the Sultan, pretending to reconcile them, reunited them
in the mosque from which Abū Nu`aym had been banned and massacred them to the
last man. Thus Abū Nu`aym's
banishment had saved his life.
Cf. Abū
Nu`aym, Dhikr Akhbār
Asbahān (2:306), al-Dhahabī,
Siyar (Risāla
ed 17:462), and Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū`
al-Fatāwā
(12:209) and Dar' Ta`ārud al-`Aql wal-Naql (Ed
Muhammad al-Sayyid Julaynid, Cairo: Mu'assasat al-Ahrām,
1988) 1:268=Muwāfaqat Sarīh al-Ma`qūl
(1:160) on the margins of Minhāj
al-Sunna al-Nabawiyya (Bulāq: al-Matba`at
al-Kubrā al-Amīriyya,
1904).
Ibn al-Salāh,
`Ulūm al-Hadīth
(p. 348).