Bakkar ibn Qutayba was a Hanafi jurist and hadith scholar born in Basra in 182 AH (798 CE), who studied law under Hilal ibn Yahya, a pupil of Abu Yusuf. He was appointed chief judge (qadi) of Egypt by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil in 246 AH (860 CE) and held the office for more than twenty years. When the Tulunid ruler Ahmad ibn Tulun demanded that he endorse the removal of the heir al-Muwaffaq from the caliphal succession, Bakkar refused and was imprisoned, yet he continued to transmit hadith even from his cell. He died in Cairo in 270 AH (884 CE), roughly forty days after Ibn Tulun's death, and his tomb in the Qarafa Cemetery of Cairo remains a site of visitation. Among his students was the great Hanafi scholar Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi. Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi ("Bekkâr b. Kuteybe"; "Tolunoğulları"); Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-a'yan.