IBN MAJAH
His real name was Abu Abdullahi Muhammad Ibn. Yazid Ibn. MAJAH al-Rabi' al Qazwini. He was born in a village called Qazwini in Persia in the year 209 AH. And died on Monday 21st Ramadan 273A at the age of 64 years.
Ibn- majah began his learning much later in Hus home town where he studies Arabic literature and grammar as a basis for his studies. Then he began his journey for the learning of Hadith around the age of twenty years. He travelled to many towns, countries and visited many centers of learning. Among the cities he visited were Khurasan, Iraq, Hijaz, Sham, Misra, Kufa and Basra. His teachers were Imam Abubakar Ibn Abu Shaibah, Imam Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abdullahi Ibn Nu'man And Others.
His students were: Ibn Sibawaihi, Muhammad Ibn Isah As-Sigar, Ishaq Ibn. Muhammad and Others who later became great scholars all over the Muslim world.
HIS CHARACTER
Imam Ibn-Majah was pious, trustworthy, hardworking and of retentive memory. He loved knowledge and was a respected devotee to religious duties. So scholars unanimously agreed that Ibn-Majah was a great scholars and trustworthy.
HIS LITERARY CONTRIBUTIONS
Imam Ibn-Majah has contributed to the development of Islamic learning in teaching and in writing. As we have discussed earlier, many student received a great deal of knowledge from him and later became great teachers in their various places. With regard to writing, he wrote many books on the biography of the prophet (S.A.W) the companions and their followers and in Tafsir and Hadith literature. Such books include:
1. Kitabu as-Sunan.
2. Kitabu at-Tarikh lis-Sahaba
3. Kitabu Tafsir
He also wrote many books but some of them seem to have been lost. Presently the book of Tafsir and Tarikh have been lost for long time. However, the most famous book commonly known with him is the Sunan Ibn-Majah which is available in Libraries and in circulation all over the world. The book had been published many times.
In the Sunan, Imam Ibn-Majah collected many traditions. He compiled 4341 traditions. Out of them, 3002 have been recorded by authors of the remaining five books. 1339 traditions were recorded by Ibn-Majah alone. These 1339 traditions are divided as follows: 428 traditions authentic 199 traditions good, 613 traditions are folk and unknown traditions. Imam Ibn-Majah did not note these defect while Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi noted their defects.
The book is arranged in 32 books, or 1500 chapters. He presented the book to one of the Hadith critic Imam Abu Zaraa for confirmation and criticism. The critic was said to have recommended it for it's general plan and arrangement of materials and remarked that the work has a small number of the weak traditions. On this, a lot of discussion were made by scholars about the book. Imam Qadi-al-Khalil Al Qazwini considered the book as an authority of the highest rank, while scholars like Ibn-al-Athir,Imam Mughalatai and Imam Qastallani, disliked ranking it along with other five books.
Generally, Muslims believed that the Sunan Ibn-Majah contained a good Number of forged traditions. Qazwini viewed Ibn-Majah's collection as forged which has been severely criticised because it contained many weak traditions. Some scholars declared the work as inauthentic because all the traditions in it are not found in the earlier collections of Hadith.
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