Abū al-Ḥusayn ‘Asākir ad-Dīn Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj ibn Muslim ibn Ward ibn Kawshādh al-Qushayrī an-Naysābūrī or Muslim Nayshāpūrī, commonly known as Imam Muslim, was an Islamic scholar, particularly known as a muhaddith. 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 collections, alongside Sahih al-Bukhari.
Biography
Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj was born in the town of Nishapur in the Abbasid province of Khorasan, in present-day northeastern Iran. Historians differ as to his date of birth, though it is usually given as 202 AH, 204 AH, or 206 AH. Adh-Dhahabi said, "It is said that he was born in the year 204 AH," though he also said, "But I think he was born before that." Ibn Khallikan could find no report of Muslim's date of birth, or age at death, by any of the ḥuffāẓ, except their agreement that he was born after 200 AH. Ibn Khallikan cites Ibn al-Salah, who cites Ibn al-Bayyiʿ's Kitab ʿUlama al-Amsar, in the claim that Muslim was 55 years old when he died on 25 Rajab, 261 AH and therefore his year of birth must have been 206 AH. Ibn al-Bayyiʿ reports that he was buried in Nasarabad, a suburb of Nishapur. According to scholars he 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 of Persian descent, attributed to the Qushayr tribe by way of wala'. 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 2 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 is. His Sahih is said to share about 2000 hadiths with Bukhari's Sahih. The author'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, he settled in his hometown of Nishapur, where he met, and became a lifelong friend of, Bukhari.
Legacy
The Sunni scholar Ishaq Ibn Rahwayh was first to recommend Muslim's work. Ishaq's contemporaries did not at first accept this. Abu Zur‘a al-Razi objected that Muslim had omitted too much material which Muslim himself recognised as authentic; and that he included transmitters who were weak. Ibn Abi Hatim later accepted Muslim as "trustworthy, one of the hadith masters with knowledge of hadith"; but this contrasts with much more fulsome praise of Abu Zur‘a and also his father Abu Hatim. It is similar with Ibn al-Nadim. Muslim's book gradually increased in stature such that it is considered among Sunni Muslims the most authentic collections of hadith, second only to Sahih Bukhari.
