The Life of Ibn Ḥanbal. Ibn al-Jawzi
TEACHERS AND HIS RESPECT FOR LEARNING
[Ismāʿīl al-Daylamī:] ʿAmr al-Nāqid said, “We were studying with Wakīʿ when Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal came in and sat down.” He began describing how deferential Aḥmad was to Wakīʿ. Then he said: “I told Aḥmad how highly our teacher thought of him and asked him why he wouldn’t speak in his presence. He said, ‘So what if he thinks highly of me? I still have to treat him with reverence.’” 6.1
[ʿAbd Allāh:] I heard Muhannaʾ ibn Yaḥyā l-Shāmī report, “I saw Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in Sufyān’s study circle with ʿAbd al-Razzāq sitting in front of him. I remember thinking, ‘I wonder if they have any idea who they’re sitting with.’” By this he meant: Did they know how learned Ibn Ḥanbal was? 6.2
[Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd:] I came to Baghdad with one purpose: to meet Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. In the event, he came to me, along with Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn. We exchanged Hadith reports46 and then he stood up, came over, and sat down in front of me. 6.3
“Dictate that one to me,” he said. Then [he returned to his seat and] we went back to exchanging reports. After a time, he again rose and came over to me.
“Aḥmad,” I said, “you don’t have to get up!”
“Don’t worry about me,” he replied. “All I care about is getting the learning right.”
[Al-Shahīdī:] I remember seeing Yaḥyā l-Qaṭṭān pray the afternoon prayer and then lean against the pillar of the mosque where he prayed. ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, al-Shādhakūnī,47 ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and others would stand before him and ask about Hadith. They would stay on their feet until it was time for sunset prayer. Al-Qaṭṭān would never invite any of them to sit down, and they were too much in awe of him to sit down by themselves. 6.4
[Khalaf:] Ibn Ḥanbal came to me to hear the Hadith of Abū ʿAwānah. I tried as hard as I could to persuade him to take a higher seat, but he refused. “The only place I’ll sit is in front of you,” he said. “We Muslims ought to show deference to our teachers.”48 6.5
HIS EAGERNESS TO LEARN AND HIS SINGLE-MINDED PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE
Ibn Ḥanbal, may God be pleased with him, traveled great distances in search of Hadith and spent a long time acquiring it, and did not permit himself to be distracted by earning a living or seeking a wife until he had achieved what he set out to do. 7.1
[Aḥmad:] I didn’t marry until I was past forty. 7.2
[Aḥmad al-Dawraqī:] I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say, “We’ve written down six or seven versions of a Hadith and even then didn’t feel sure of its provenance. So how can someone feel sure of a report they’ve written only once?” or words to that effect. 7.3
[Ṣāliḥ:] I heard my father say, “I’ve written down a million Hadith reports in my own writing, not counting the ones written down for me.” 7.4
HIS POWERS OF RETENTION AND THE NUMBER OF REPORTS HE KNEW BY HEART
[ʿAbd Allāh:] I heard Abū Zurʿah say that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal knew a million Hadith reports. 8.1
“How would you know?” he was asked.
“He and I recited them to each other, and we went through the different topics.”49
[Ṣāliḥ:] My father told me that a man once came to Ibn ʿUlayyah’s door with Hushaym’s Hadith books. 8.2
“He started reading the reports out to me, and I would say the chain of transmitters for each one. Al-Muʿayṭī also used to memorize Hadith, and when he arrived I asked him to take over, but he wouldn’t.”50
My father said, “I even knew of reports [transmitted by Hushaym] that I had never heard directly from him.”
[Aḥmad:] I memorized everything I heard from Hushaym while he was still alive. 8.3
[Ibn Abī Ḥātim:] Saʿīd ibn ʿAmr al-Bardhaʿī once asked Abū Zurʿah who had memorized more, he or Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. 8.4
“Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, of course.”
“How do you know that?”
“When I looked at his papers,” said Abū Zurʿah, “I saw that at the front of each quire,51 he didn’t list the names of the transmitters he heard reports from. Instead, for every quire, he knew the names of the transmitters by heart. I could never do that.”
[Al-Tustarī:] Abū Zurʿah was asked which of the senior transmitters had the best memory. 8.5
“Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal,” he said. “The day he died, they made an estimate of the number of papers he left behind. It came to twelve and a half loads.52 Nowhere on any of the outside pages had he written ‘the Hadith of So-and-So,’ or ‘So-and-So reported to us’ on any of the inside pages. All of that he knew by heart.”
[Abū Zurʿah:] I went to see Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and asked him to find Sufyān’s Hadith for me. He brought out quires all labeled Sufyān, just Sufyān, without marking a single report as “Transmitted by So-and-So.” I thought they must all have been transmitted by the same person. But when I picked some out for him to read back, he would say for each Hadith, “Wakīʿ,” or “Yaḥyā,” or whoever, “reported to us …” I was amazed. More than once I’ve tried to do something like that, but I’ve never been able to. 8.6
[Aḥmad:] I used to challenge Wakīʿ to recite al-Thawrī’s Hadith reports from memory. Whenever Wakiʿ finished the last prayer of the night, he would leave the mosque and head for home. I would challenge him and he would often reply by citing nine or ten reports, which I would then memorize. After he left, the Hadith scholars would ask me to dictate the reports to them, and I would. 8.7
[Ibn Saʿīd:] Whenever Wakīʿ would leave the Hadith-circle to pray the evening prayer, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal would go with him and stand by the door while Wakīʿ kept quizzing him about reports. One night, Wakīʿ stopped in the doorway with his hands on the jamb and said, “I’m going to test you on the Hadith of Sufyān.” 8.8
“Go ahead,” said Ibn Ḥanbal.
“Have you memorized what Sufyān transmitted citing Salamah ibn Kuhayl … ?” asked Wakīʿ, reciting the Hadith.
“Yes,” said Aḥmad. “We heard Yaḥyā report,” giving the transmitter.
“What about Salamah on such-and-such?”
“We heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān report,” said Aḥmad.
“What about Sufyān from Salamah on such and-such?”
“We heard that from you.”
And so they continued until they had covered all of the reports transmitted by Salamah. Then Aḥmad asked: “Do you know Salamah’s report about … ?” giving the Hadith.
“No,” said Wakīʿ.
Aḥmad then began asking about one report after another. Each time, Wakīʿ was stumped. Aḥmad went through the reports of the other major transmitters one by one. He was still standing there when the servant girl appeared and said, “The morning star”—or “Venus”—“is up!”