Imam al-Tirmidhi

Hadith scholar, author of al-Jami' al-sahih (the Sunan), one of the Six Books. His full name was Abu 'Isa Muhammad b. 'Isa b. Sawra (Yazid) al-Tirmidhi. Scholars are unanimous that he was a trustworthy (thiqa) traditionist; his being called imam, a title used for the foremost scholars, shows his eminent place in the science of hadith.

He was probably born in 209 (824) at Tirmidh, today within the borders of Uzbekistan — or in the village of Bugh, a dependency of Tirmidh. By his own account he belonged to a family that had come from Merv and settled in Tirmidh; he is also called al-Sulami, after the Banu Sulaym of the Qays 'Aylan tribes.

Around the year 235 (849) he began the study of hadith, first in Tirmidh and then with scholars of other regions, above all Khurasan, Iraq and the Hijaz. He benefited from Ibn al-Muthanna and from Muhammad b. Bashshar, known as Bundar — each a teacher of every one of the imams of the Six Books — and from traditionists such as Ishaq b. Rahuya, Qutayba b. Sa'id, Hannad b. al-Sari, 'Ali b. Hujr, Imam al-Bukhari, Imam Muslim and Abu Dawud. It appears that he never went to Baghdad and so did not study with Ahmad b. Hanbal; most probably he did not travel to Egypt and Syria for learning either.

For a long time he was a pupil of al-Bukhari, transmitting many hadiths from him and learning from him the jurisprudence of hadith. In his own words, since there was no scholar in Iraq and Khurasan superior to al-Bukhari in the hidden defects of hadith, its narrators and its chains, he drew heavily on his teacher in these matters too. Al-Bukhari in turn esteemed his learning and intelligence and, as al-Tirmidhi reports, said to him: "In truth, what I have gained from you is more than what you have gained from me." That he nevertheless took no hadith from al-Bukhari in his al-Jami' al-sahih, and only one each from Muslim and Abu Dawud, is explained by the fact that the three generally transmitted from the same teachers.

Since the schools of law had spread in his time, he learned the principal views of each school from the leading pupils of its imam; like the other imams of the Six Books, he adhered to no school. His powerful memory became the subject of reports: al-Dhahabi relates that on his way to Mecca he met a shaykh whose narrations he had earlier written down in two fascicles, and recited those hadiths to him from memory. According to al-Hakim al-Kabir, one of his teachers said that after al-Bukhari's death no scholar remained in Khurasan like al-Tirmidhi in learning, memory, asceticism and piety, and that he wept out of piety until he lost his sight. He is known to have been a man of deep feeling, who kept away from anything that might bring reproach upon him, set no value on worldly goods and strove with all his effort to build up his hereafter.

After completing al-Jami' al-sahih he showed it to the scholars of Khurasan, Iraq and the Hijaz and received their appreciation and approval. He died on 13 Rajab 279 (9 October 892) in the village of Bugh, a dependency of Tirmidh.

His Circle of Influence — Among his many pupils, Abu'l-'Abbas Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Mahbub al-Mahbubi, Abu Sa'id al-Haytham b. Kulayb al-Shashi (also the transmitter of the Shama'il), Abu Dharr Muhammad b. Ibrahim al-Tirmidhi, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan b. Ibrahim al-Qattan, Abu Hamid Ahmad b. 'Abd Allah al-Tajir and Abu'l-Hasan al-Fazari are famed as transmitters of al-Jami' al-sahih. The traditionist Hammad b. Shakir al-Nasafi and Makhul b. al-Fadl al-Nasafi are also named among his pupils. Ibn Khalfun al-Andalusi identified his teachers in his work Shuyukh Abi 'Isa al-Tirmidhi.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — His line is the science of hadith. Ibn Hibban says that the qualities required of a traditionist — collecting, arranging, memorizing and discussing the hadiths he learned — were all found in him. He is one of the very few scholars with a complete mastery of the hidden defects ('ilal) that impair the soundness of hadiths and are extremely hard to detect. Because of this competence, when he found no sound hadith on a subject he admitted some weak ones, but criticized their chains and stated how far their narrators could be trusted. He maintained that, apart from two hadiths, every report in his book was one acted upon. Among his services to hadith scholarship is the particular meaning he gave to the term hasan: according to some scholars he was the first to use hasan as a technical term and so began the threefold division of hadith (sound, good, weak). Some scholars held that, owing to his authority in 'ilal and in the criticism and validation of narrators, his book ought to rank third after the Sahihayn.

His Works — ① al-Jami' al-sahih: his work included in the Six Books; it has many commentaries and abridgements, and among its many editions are cited those of Delhi and Bulaq and the editions prepared by Ahmad Muhammad Shakir, Muhammad Fu'ad 'Abd al-Baqi and Ibrahim 'Atwa 'Awad. ② al-Shama'il al-nabawiyya: the first work in its field and regarded as the most perfect written on the subject; most of its hadiths are sound, a significant part good and very few weak; many commentaries, glosses and abridgements have been made of it and it has been translated into various languages. ③ al-'Ilal al-kabir: written before al-Jami'; its original is unknown, and the arrangement by chapters of law made by Abu Talib al-Qadi has been published. ④ al-'Ilal al-saghir: it stands at the end of al-Jami' as its fifty-first book and serves as its introduction; Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali wrote a commentary on it. ⑤ Tasmiyat ashab al-nabi: it begins with the ten promised Paradise and arranges the names of the Companions by their first letters; according to its two copies in the Süleymaniye Library it gives the names of 730 Companions. ⑥ Kitab al-Ta'rikh: nothing is known of it. ⑦ Kitab al-Asma' wa'l-kuna: Ibn Hajar evidently saw it. ⑧ al-Zuhd: Ibn Hajar mentions it but states that he did not see it.