Waki' ibn al-Jarrah

Abū Sufyān Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ ibn Malīḥ al-Ruʾāsī al-Kilābī al-Kufī (Arabic: أبو سفيان وكيع بن الجراح بن مليح الرؤاسي الكلابي الكوفي; 745/47–812) was a prominent hadith scholar based in Kufa. He was one of the principal teachers of the major Sunni Muslim jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

Waki' ibn al-Jarrah
Personal life
Born	745–747 Kufa, Umayyad Caliphate
Died	812 (aged 65–66) Fayd, Abbasid Caliphate
Children	Sufyan ibn Waki'
Main interest(s)	Hadith
Notable work(s)	al-Sunan, al-Marifa Wa al-Tarikh, al-Zuhd
Religious life
Religion	Islam
Denomination	Sunni
Jurisprudence	Hanafi[1][2]

Origins

Waki was born in Kufa,^[3] or in the village of Ustuwa near Nishapur,^[4] in 128/129 AH (745–747 CE).^[5] His father al-Jarrah ibn Malih belonged to the Ubayd ibn Ru'as clan of the Banu Kilab tribe and was born in Soghdia, while his mother, a daughter of Amra ibn Shaddad ibn Thawr of the same clan, was born in Bukhara;^[4][6] the Ubayd ibn Ru'as had been settled in Kufa following the Muslim conquest of Iraq in the 630s.^[7] The family was well off and al-Jarrah was the supervisor of the bayt al-darb (mint) at Rayy,^[4] before being appointed head of the bayt al-mal (treasury) in Baghdad under the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809).^[3][4]

Career

Schooled in the Islamic religious sciences, especially the hadith (traditions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad), Waki became a leading traditionist (muhaddith) in his hometown, known for transmitting numerous hadiths based on his memorizations.^[8][9] Despite the errors of transmission attributed to him, Waki was generally regarded as the best muhaddith of his time.^[3] His refusal of an appointment as qadi (head judge) by Harun al-Rashid out of concern of dependence on the state further contributed to his reputation for piety and ascetism.^[3]

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani has mentioned a long list of his teachers and students in his work Tahdhib al-tahdhib. He transmitted hadiths on the authority of the earlier Muslim scholars Isma'il ibn Abi Khalid, Ikrima ibn Ammar, al-Awza'i, al-A'mash, and Malik ibn Anas, as well as his father.^[3][9] Al-Dhahabi in his Siyar a`lam al-nubala has listed the names of about 20 teachers of Waki out of which the best known were Sufyan al-Thawri, Shu'ba ibn al-Ḥajjāj and Ibn Jurayj.^[10] He was among the most important teachers of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, founder and namesake of the Hanbali school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence (fiqh).^[11] Waki himself was classified as a follower of the Hanafi fiqh of Sunni Islam.^[12]

Waki built a mosque in Kufa, installing as its imam a tribesman of his, Humayd ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Humayd al-Ru'asi.^[4]

Death and descendants

On his return from the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), Waki died in the Fayd oasis in 197 AH (812).^[5] His son Sufyan was also a Kufan traditionist, though of poor reputation. Sufyan died at an old age in 861.^[13][14]

Literary works

Although Waki was popularly held to have never possessed a book, he authored a number of works:^[3]

• Tafsir al-Quran
• al-Sunan
• al-Marifa Wa al-Tarikh
• al-Musannaf (cited by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani)^[3]
• al-Zuhd (a copy of which is preserved in the al-Zahiriyah Library Library of Damascus)^[3]
• Kitab al-salat, of which just one page survived on a papyrus leaf^[15]