al-Khatib al-Baghdadi

Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Ali, known as al-Khatib al-Baghdadi ("the preacher of Baghdad"), was one of the foremost hadith scholars and historians of medieval Islam. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam he was born on 24 Jumada II 392 AH / 10 May 1002 CE; the sources disagree on the exact village — some name Hanikiya near the Nahr al-Malik canal below Baghdad, others a hamlet on the Kufa-Mecca road, while his father served as preacher (khatib) at Darzijan, southwest of Baghdad. He studied first in Baghdad, then travelled widely in pursuit of hadith (reports of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad), reaching Basra, Kufa, and on a later eastward journey Nishapur, Rayy and Isfahan in Khurasan and the Jibal, before returning to Baghdad; he afterward travelled through greater Syria and performed the pilgrimage at Mecca.

He is best known for two works. Tarikh Baghdad ("History of Baghdad") is a vast biographical dictionary preserving thousands of life-notices of the city's scholars and notables. Al-Kifaya became a cornerstone of the science of hadith criticism — the discipline of grading reports and their chains of transmission (isnad). In law he followed the Shafi'i school. The biographers disagree about his earlier affiliation: the Hanbali historian Ibn al-Jawzi reports that he began as a Hanbali before turning to the Shafi'i school, but many earlier and later authorities hold that he was a Shafi'i from the outset and never a Hanbali. In creed he is reported to have followed the Ash'ari school, a point his Hanbali contemporaries contested. He died in Baghdad on 7 Dhu'l-Hijja 463 AH / 5 September 1071 CE and was, it is related, buried by his own wish near the grave of the early ascetic Bishr al-Hafi.