A1145 - Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Hadith Collector

 Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj

Abū al-Ḥusayn ‘Asākir ad-Dīn Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj ibn Muslim ibn Ward ibn Kawshādh al-Qushayri an-Naysābūrī (b. after 815 [200 AH], Nishapur, Abbasid Caliphate – d. May 875 CC [261 AH], Nasarabad, Abbasid Caliphate) or Muslim Nayshāpūrī (commonly known as Imam Muslim), was an Islamic scholar from the city of Nishapur (early Khorasan and present day Iran), particularly known as a muhaddith (scholar of hadith). His hadith collection, known as Sahih Muslim, is one of the six major hadith collections in Sunni Islam and is regarded as one of the two most authentic (sahih) collections, alongside Sahih al-Bukhari. 

Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj was born in the town of Nishapur in the Abbasid province of Khorasan, in present-day northeastern Iran.

According to scholars Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj was of  Arab or Persian origin. The nisbah of "al-Qushayri" signifies Muslim's belonging to the Arab tribe of Banu Qushayr, members of which migrated to the newly conquered Persian territory during the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate. A scholar named Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī introduced the idea that he may have been a mawla (a new convert to Islam) of Persian descent, attributed to the Qushayr tribe by way of wala' (alliance). An ancestor of Muslim may have been a freed slave of a Qushayri, or may have accepted Islam at the hands of a Qushayri. According to two other scholars, Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn al-Salāh, he was actually an Arab member of that tribe of which his family had migrated to Iran nearly two centuries earlier following the conquest.

Estimates on the number of hadiths in his books vary from 3,033 to 12,000, depending on whether duplicates are included, or only the text (isnad) is. His Sahih ("authentic") is said to share about 2000 hadiths with Bukhari's Sahih.

Al-Hajjaj's teachers included Harmala ibn Yahya, Sa'id ibn Mansur, Abd-Allah ibn Maslamah al-Qa'nabi, al-Dhuhali, al-Bukhari, Ibn Ma'in,  Yahya ibn Yahya al-Nishaburi al-Tamimi, and others. Among his students were al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi, and Ibn Khuzaymah, each of whom also wrote works on hadith. After his studies throughout the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, al-Hajjaj settled in his hometown of Nishapur, where he met, and became a lifelong friend of al-Bukhari.

The Sunni scholar, Ishaq ibn Rahwayh (b. 161 AH [777-778 CC] - d. 238 AH [852-853 CC] was the first scholar to recommend Muslim's work.  Ishaq's contemporaries did not at first accept his recommendation. Abu Zur‘a al-Razi objected that al-Hajjaj had omitted too much material which al-Hajjaj himself recognized as authentic and that he included transmitters who were weak.

Nevertheless, Ibn Abi Hatim (d. 327 [938 CC]) later accepted al-Hajjaj as "trustworthy, one of the hadith masters with knowledge of hadith"; and this assessment was bolstered by the much more enthusiastic praise of Abu Zur‘a, Abu Hatim, and Ibn al-Nadim.

Al-Hajjaj's collection of hadith gradually increased in stature such that his Sahih Muslim is considered among Sunni Muslims to be the most authentic collection of hadith, second only to Sahih Bukhari.