Ibn Maja
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Ibn Maja, full name Abu `Abdallah Muhammad ibn Yazid Ibn Maja al-Rab`i al-Qazwini, was a medieval scholar of hadith (the sayings of Muhammad). He compiled the last of Sunni Islam's six canonical hadith collections, Sunan Ibn Maja.
Ibn Maja was born in Qazwin in modern-day Iranian province of Qazvin in 824 (209 AH) to a Persian family, clients (mawla) of the Arab tribe of Rabi`a ibn Nizar. His patronymic "Mâja" means "month" in ancient Persian (corresponding to modern mâh), and may have been his father's title, or his mother's or grandmother's name. At the age of 22, he left his hometown to travel the Islamic world; among the areas he visited were Kufa, Basra, Egypt, Sham (Syria), Baghdad, Rayy, Mecca, Medina, and Khorasan. He died in 887 (Ramadan 22, 273 AH.)
After his travels, he wrote the Sunan Ibn Maja, recording 4,341 hadiths, of which 3,002 are recorded by the other five canonical hadith collectors; of the 1,339 hadith unique to him, 428 are graded sahih (authentic), while the remainder are considered less certain. According to Ibn Kathir, he also wrote a tafsir (commentary on the Qur'an) and a book on history, but neither survive. Other authors began to add him to the canonical five hadith collectors beginning in the 13th century, but his position remained controversial as late as the 18th century.
[edit] Works
- Sunan Ibn Maja
- Kitaab at-Tafseer.
- Kitaab at-Taareekh
[edit] Sources
- Suhaib Hasan Abdul Ghaffar, Criticism of Hadith among Muslims with reference to Sunan Ibn Maja, Presidency of Islamic Research, IFTA and Propagation: Riyadh 1984 (1404 AH).
