Yahya ibn Ma'in

Yahya ibn Ma'in
يحيى بن معين
Title	Malik al-Huffaz (the king of the memorizers of hadith) Shaykh al-Muhaddithin (the teacher of the hadith experts)
Personal
Born	774^[1] Baghdad,^[2] Abbasid Caliphate
Died	847 (aged 72–73)^[4]^[5] Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate
Religion	Islam
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Region	Abbasid Caliphate
Creed	Athari^[3]
Main interest(s)	Hadith Jurisprudence
Known for	Ilm al-Rijal
Muslim leader
Teacher	Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak Jarir ibn Abd al-Hamid Waki' ibn al-Jarrah Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi Sufyan ibn Uyaynah Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani
Students Ibn Sa'd Ahmad ibn Hanbal Al-Bukhari Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub al-Juzajani Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj Dawud al-Zahiri Abu Dawud Abu Hatim Abu Ya'la al-Mawsili
Influenced by Abu Hanifa, Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak
Influenced Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Muhammad al-Bukhari,^[6] Dawud al-Zahiri, Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub al-Juzajani^[7]

Yaḥyā ibn Maʻīn (Arabic: يحيى بن معين) (774-847), was a classical Islamic scholar in the field of hadith.^[8] He was a close friend of Ahmad ibn Hanbal for much of his life. Ibn Ma'in is known to have spent all of his inheritance on seeking hadith to the extent he became extremely needy.

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Biography

Professional life

Yahya ibn Ma'in was born in 158 (A.H.) during the caliphate of Abu Ja‘far al-Mansur to Nabataean ancestry from Al-Anbar and was raised in Baghdad. He was the oldest of a prominent group of muḥadiths (experts in ḥadīth) known as Al-Jamā'a Al-Kibār (The Great Assembly), which included Ali ibn al-Madini, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah, and Abu Khaithama. He was a close friend of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and is often quoted regarding Ilm ar-Rijal.^[9] Alongside Ibn Hanbal, Ali ibn al-Madini and Ibn Abi Shaybah, Ibn Ma'in has been considered by many Muslim specialists in hadith to be one of the four most significant authors in the field.^[10]

Academic career

Yahya sought knowledge by means of various journeys which he made so rigorously that after the passing of his father, he spent all of his 1,050,000 inherited dirhams on seeking ḥadīth to the extent that nothing remained - not even enough to purchase a pair of shoes.^[11] His journey of seeking knowledge of hadith and Islamic rulings caused him to travel to Basrah, Bagdād, Harān, Dimasq, al-Rasāfah, al-Ray, Sanʿā’, Kufā, Egypt and Mecca.^[12] Despite being a master of his science, his works were not limited to mere approbations and disapprobation of narrators, or narrating of aḥādīth;^[13] rather, he progressed forward as an author writing many books, although many are no longer extant,^[14] despite his formally writing as an author from the age of twenty.^[15] Of the books available today are; Ma’rifatul al-Rijāl,^[16] Yaḥyā bin Maʿīn wa Kitābuhu ‘l-Tārīkh and a small treatise titled ‘Min Kalām Abī Zakariyyā Yaḥyā bin Maʿīn fi ‘l-Rijāl’.

His teachers included Abdullah Ibn al-Mubārak, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿIyāsh, ‘Abād ibn ‘Abād, Sufyān ibn ʿUyainah, Gundur, Abū Muʿāwiyyah, Ḥātim ibn Ismāʿīl, Ḥafṣ ibn Giyāth, Jarīr ibn ʿAbdul-Ḥamīd, ‘Abd ur-Ruzzāq Sanani, Wakī’ and many others from Irāq, Ḥijāz, Jazīrah, Shām and Miṣr.^[17]

His famous students included Aḥmad bin Ḥanbal, Muḥammad bin Sʿad, Abū Khaithamah, al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, ʿAbbās al-Dawrī, Abū Ḥātim and many more.^[18]

Together with Ibn Saʿd and five others, he was ordered in 218/833 by al-Maʾmūn to profess the createdness of the Quran. T̲h̲reatened with death, they complied and the event was well publicised (al-Ṭabarī, volume 3, 1116). Ibn Ḥanbal never spoke to him subsequently. However, there are reports he repented to him personally at the end of his life, with Ibn Hanbal forgiving him and returning to speaking terms with him. He reputedly exposed many traditions as false and is regarded as one of the most critical early experts on rid̲j̲āl. He reportedly left behind a huge library.^[19]

References

^ "مناهج أئمة الجرح والتعديل". Ibnamin.com. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
^ Tahdhib al-Tahdhib
^ Melchert, Christopher (1997). The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th-10th Centuries C.E. Koninklijke Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Publishers. pp. 7, 165. ISBN 90-04-10952-8.
^ "Muslim American Society". Masnet.org. 2003-10-09. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
^ "USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts". Usc.edu. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
^ "IslamWeb". IslamWeb. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
^ 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.
^ "Mengenal Yahya Bin Ma'in, Ahli Hadis yang Wafat Ditemani Ribuan Kitab". Arrahmah.com (in Indonesian). 2021-08-20. Retrieved 2021-09-21.
^ "Rijal: narrators of the Muwatta of Imam Muhammad". Bogvaerker.dk. 2005-01-08. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
^ Ibn al-Jawzi, The Life of Ibn Hanbal, pg. 45. Trns. Michael Cooperson. New York: New York University Press, 2016. ISBN 9781479805303
^ Maʿrifatul ‘l-Rijāl, Vol 1, pg. 5. Tārīkh Bagdād, Vol 16, pg. 265
^ Maʿrifatul al-Rijāl, Vol 1, pg. 7 – 8.
^ Maʿrifatul ‘l-Rijāl, Vol 1, pg. 16
^ Maʿrifatul ‘l-Rijāl, Vol 1, pg. 6
^ Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā’, Vol 11, pg. 77
^ Ma’rifatul ‘l-Rijāl, Vol 1, pg. 16
^ Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā’, Vol 11, pg. 72. Al-Kamāl fī Asmā' al-Rijāl, Vol. 31, pg. 544 – 546
^ Tārīkh Bagdād, Vol 16, pg. 263. Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā’, Vol 11, pg. 72. Tahzīb Al-Kamāl fī Asmā' al-Rijāl, Vol. 31, pg. 546
^ Leemhuis, F. (2012-04-24), "Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn", Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Brill, retrieved 2023-06-27