Abū al-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn ʻAbdillāh ibn Jaʻfar al-Madīnī (778 CE/161 AH – 849/234) (Arabic: أبو الحسن علي بن عبد الله بن جعفر المديني) was a ninth-century SunniIslamic scholar who was influential in the science of hadith.[2]
Ibn al-Madīnī was born in the year 778 CE/161 AH in Basra, Iraq to a family with roots in Medina now in Saudi Arabia.[3] His teachers include his father, ʻAbdullāh ibn Jaʻfar, Ḥammād ibn Yazīd, Hushaym and Sufyān ibn ʻUyaynah and other from their era. His teacher, Ibn ʻUyaynah, said that he had learned more from Ibn al-Madīnī, his student, than his student from him.[2]
Ibn al-Madīnī specialized in the disciplines of hadith, biographical evaluation and al-ʻIlal, hidden defects, in the sanad, chain of narration. He was praised by other hadith specialists for his prowess in that field—by both his contemporaries, students and his teachers. ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, a scholar who preceded him, described Ibn al-Madīnī the most knowledgeable person of prophetic hadith.[2]
Al-Dhahabī lauded Ibn al-Madīnī as an imām and as exemplary to subsequent scholars in the field in hadith, a description he considered tarnished by Ibn al-Madīnī's adopted position in the theological inquisition of the ninth century. According to Al-Dhahabī, he adopted a position in favor of the Muʻtazilah regarding the uncreated origin of the Quran, but later regretted this and declared the claimant that the Quran was created as an apostate.[2]
^Al-Bastawī, ʻAbd al-ʻAlīm ʻAbd al-ʻAẓīm (1990). Al-Imām al-Jūzajānī wa-manhajuhu fi al-jarḥ wa-al-taʻdīl. Maktabat Dār al-Ṭaḥāwī. p. 9.
^ abcdeal-Dhahabi, Muhammad ibn Ahmad (1957). al-Mu`allimi, ed. Tadhkirah al-Huffaz (in Arabic). 2. Hyderabad: Dairah al-Ma`arif al-`Uthmaniyyah. pp. 428–9.
^ abcdal-Nawawi, Yahya ibn Sharaf (2005). Ali Mu`awwad and Adil Abd al-Mawjud, ed. Tahdhib al-Asma wa al-Lughat (in Arabic). al-Asma. Beirut: Dar al-Nafaes. pp. 455–6.
^ abcdeal-Mu`allimi, Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya (1996). Ali al-Halabi, ed. `Ilm al-Rijal wa Ahimmiyyatuh (in Arabic) (first ed.). Riyadh: Dar al-Rayah. p. 38.