| Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Qattan | |
|---|---|
| يحيى بن سعيد القطان | |
 Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Qattan rendered in Arabic calligraphy | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | 120 AH/738 CE Basra, Umayyad Caliphate |
| Died | 198 AH/768 CE Basra, Abbasid Caliphate |
| Main interest(s) | Hadith, biographical evaluation |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Islam |
| Muslim leader | |
| Students | |
| Influenced by | |
Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Qattan (Arabic: يحيى بن سعيد القطان, romanized: Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān; 120 AH/738 CE – 198 AH/813 CE) was an eighth-century Basran hadith scholar of the tabi' al-tabi'in who is considered a progenitor of Sunni hadith criticism.
Biography
Yahya ibn Sa'id was born in Basra in 120 AH/738 CE to descendants of freed slaves from Banu Tamim; his work in the cotton trade earned him the nisba al-Qattan. He travelled to Medina, Baghdad and Kufa in pursuit of hadith. He audited the lessons of Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj for twenty years, as well as those of Sufyan al-Thawri. His other teachers included the grammarian Hammad ibn Salamah, the jurists Malik ibn Anas and al-Awza'i, and Ibn Jurayj, a substantial proportion of whose extant biographical information has been transmitted through him. His own students included Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ali ibn al-Madini, Yahya ibn Ma'in, and Ishaq ibn Rahwayh. He reportedly authored two works which have not survived: al-Ḍuʿafā, a book of unreliable hadith narrators, and Kitāb al-Maghāzī. Ibn Sa'id died in Basra in 198 AH/813 CE.
Views
Ibn Sa'id was critical of hadith that he transmitted without a sahabi narrator (i.e., mursal hadith), and identified tadlīs performed by hadith narrators regardless of their stature, including his teacher and celebrated jurist Sufyan al-Thawri. He was known for his strict standards in biographical evaluation. He deemed several ascetics and Sufis as unreliable narrators and was sceptical of hadith transmitted through them. A famous statement that can be plausibly attributed to Ibn Sa'id through isnad-cum-matn analysis comments on how the pious (al-ṣāliḥīn) were most dishonest in matters of hadith, which has been adduced as evidence of hadith forgery among some early Muslims.
References
Citations
- ^ Little, Joshua (2022-11-09). "A Famous Report About Pious Fabrication in Hadith". Islamic Origins. Archived from the original on 2024-06-12. Retrieved 2024-12-17.
- ^ Ahatlı, Erdinç. "YAHYÂ b. SAÎD el-KATTÂN". İslâm Ansiklopedisi (in Turkish). Retrieved 2024-12-17.
- Motzki 2002, p. 284
- Motzki 2002, pp. 249-250
- Motzki 2002, p. 249
- Brown 2009, p. 234
Sources
- Motzki, Harald (2002). The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before the Classical Schools. Translated by Katz, Marion H. Brill. ISBN 9004121315
- Brown, Jonathan A.C. (2009). Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9781851686636