Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani
Persian Islamic scholar (948–1038)
Abu Nuʿaym al-Isfahani (أبـو نـعـيـم الأصـفـهـانـي; full name: Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ahmad ibn Ishāq ibn Mūsā ibn Mahrān al-Mihrānī al-Asbahānī (or al-Asfahānī) al-Ahwal al-Ash`arī al-Shāfi`ī, died 1038 CE / AH 430) was a medieval Persian Shafi'i scholar and one of the leading hadith scholars of his time. His family was an offshoot of the aristocratic House of Mihran.
Biography
Birth and Education
Born in Buwayhid era Isfahan, his first teacher was his grandfather who was a Sufi master, Sheikh Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Ma;dan al-Banna' (d. 365/976), who was the spiritual leader of a school of Sufism in Isfahan, which continued to flourish during the lifetime of Abu Nu'aym. Under his father's lead and guide, he began his scholarly career at an early age. As he got older, he would widely travel and visit Hejaz, Iraq, Syria, Khurazan and other places. He possessed ijaza in hadith from all major scholars of his time.
Teachers
Abu Nu'aym had numerous teachers, his most famous ones include:
Al-Tabarani (main teacher)
Al-Hakim al-Nishapuri
Al-Daraqutni
Al-Khattabi
Abu Bakr al-Ajurri
Abu Zayd Marwazi
Transmitting Hadith and Teaching
When he sat down to transmit hadith and teach, the memorizers of hadith gathered in droves and crowded around him, and heavily benefited from him due to his elevated chains of transmission and combined with his ample knowledge and precision he possessed. He surpassed all his contemporaries.
Students
Abu Nu'aym had many students, his most famous ones include:
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (foremost pupil)
Abu Muhammad al-Juwayni
Al-Malini
Al-Dakhwani
Abu al-Fadl Hamd bin Ahmed al-Haddad
Abu Ali al-Hassan (his younger brother)
Death
He died in Ṣafar 430/November 1038.
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This entry incorporates text from “Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.