Al-Tirmidhi

Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi (; 824 – 9 October 892 CE / 209–279 AH), commonly known as Imam al-Tirmidhi or Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, was a Muslim scholar and hadith collector from Termez in historical Greater Khorasan, in present-day Uzbekistan. He is principally known as the compiler of al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ, more commonly called Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī, one of the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam.

Al-Tirmidhi's Jāmiʿ, sometimes also designated a Ṣaḥīḥ, contains traditions concerning Islamic law as well as substantial material on religion and theology. In compiling it, he paid particular attention both to the reliability of the isnād, or chain of transmission, and to the content of individual traditions. Consequently, the collection is shorter and less repetitive than the corresponding collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. He also wrote the Shamāʾil al-Muḥammadiyya, commonly known as Shamāʾil al-Tirmidhī, a collection of hadith concerning the person and character of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Al-Tirmidhi was also well versed in Arabic grammar and preferred the grammatical school of Kufa to that of Basra, in part because the Kufan tradition preserved Arabic poetry as a primary linguistic source."Sibawayh, His Kitab, and the Schools of Basra and Kufa." In Changing Traditions: Al-Mubarrad's Refutation of Sībawayh and the Subsequent Reception of the Kitāb, p. 12. Vol. 23, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Ed. Monique Bernards. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997. Very little is otherwise known about his life, except that he was either born blind or became blind later in life.

Biography

Name and lineage

Al-Tirmidhi's given name (ism) was "Muhammad" while his kunya was "Abu `Isa" ("father of `Isa"). His genealogy is uncertain; his nasab (patronymic) has variously been given as: Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ibn Mūsá ibn aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ibn Shaddād ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ibn Shaddād ibn aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ibn Shaddād ibn ‛Īsá ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Yazīd ibn Sawrah ibn as-Sakan ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sahl ()‎ Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sahl ibn Sawrah ()‎ Muhammad ibn 'Isa ibn Sawra ibn Shaddad ibn al-Dahhak al-Sulami al-Bughi al-Tirmidhi

He was also known by the laqab "ad-Darir" ("the Blind"). It has been said that he was born blind, but the majority of scholars agree that he became blind later in his life.

At-Tirmidhi's grandfather was originally from Marw (Persian: Merv), but moved to Tirmidh. According to Britannica Online, he was an Arab. According to S.H. Nasr and M. Mutahhari in The Cambridge History of Iran, Al-Tirmidhi was of Persian ethnicity. His uncle was the famous Sufi Abu Bakr al-Warraq. Al-Warraq was the teacher of Al-Hakim al-Samarqandi, a known associate of the famous theologian Abu Mansur Al-Maturidi.

Birth Muhammad ibn `Isa at-Tirmidhi was born during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun. His year of birth has been reported as 209 AH (824/825). Cited by Adh-Dhahabi only states that at-Tirmidhi was born near the year 210 AH (825/826), thus some sources give his year of birth as 210 AH. Some sources indicate that he was born in Mecca (Siddiqi says he was born in Mecca in 206 AH (821/822)) while others say he was born in Tirmidh (Persian: Termez), in what is now southern Uzbekistan. The stronger opinion is that he was born in Tirmidh. Specifically, he was born in one of its suburbs, the village of Bugh (hence the nisbats "at-Tirmidhi" and "al-Bughi").

Hadith studies At-Tirmidhi began the study of hadith at the age of 20. From the year 235 AH (849/850) he traveled widely in Khurasan, Iraq, and the Hijaz in order to collect hadith. His teachers and those he narrated from included: al-Bukhari Abū Rajā’ Qutaybah ibn Sa‘īd al-Balkhī al-Baghlāni ‘Alī ibn Ḥujr ibn Iyās as-Sa‘dī al-Marwazī Muḥammad ibn Bashshār al-Baṣrī ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mu‘āwiyah al-Jumaḥī al-Baṣrī Abū Muṣ‘ab az-Zuhrī al-Madanī Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Mālik ibn Abī ash-Shawārib al-Umawī al-Baṣrī Ismā‘īl ibn Mūsá al-Fazārī al-Kūfi Muḥammad ibn Abī Ma‘shar as-Sindī al-Madanī Abū Kurayb Muḥammad ibn al-‘Alā’ al-Kūfī Hanād ibn al-Sarī al-Kūfī Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Harawī Suwayd ibn Naṣr ibn Suwayd al-Marwazī Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Baṣrī Zayd ibn Akhzam al-Baṣrī al-‘Abbās al-‘Anbarī al-Baṣrī Muḥammad ibn al-Muthanná al-Baṣrī Muḥammad ibn Ma‘mar al-Baṣrī ad-Darimi Muslim Abu Dawud

At the time, Khurasan, at-Tirmidhi's native land, was a major center of learning, being home to a large number of muhaddiths. Other major centers of learning visited by at-Tirmidhi were the Iraqi cities of Kufa and Basra. At-Tirmidhi reported hadith from 42 Kufan teachers. In his Jami`, he used more reports from Kufan teachers than from teachers of any other town.

At-Tirmidhi was a pupil of al-Bukhari, who was based in Khurasan. Adh-Dhahabi wrote, "His knowledge of hadith came from al-Bukhari." At-Tirmidhi mentioned al-Bukhari's name 114 times in his Jami`. He used al-Bukhari's Kitab at-Tarikh as a source when mentioning discrepancies in the text of a hadith or its transmitters, and praised al-Bukhari as being the most knowledgeable person in Iraq or Khurasan in the science of discrepancies of hadith. When mentioning the rulings of jurists, he followed al-Bukhari's practice of not mentioning the name of Abu Hanifah. Because he never received a reliable chain of narrators to mention Abu Hanifa's decrees, he would instead attribute them to "some people of Kufa." Al-Bukhari held at-Tirmidhi in high regard as well. He is reported to have told at-Tirmidhi, "I have profited more from you than you have from me," and in his Sahih he narrated two hadith from at-Tirmidhi.

At-Tirmidhi also narrated some hadiths from Abu Dawud, and one from Muslim. Muslim also narrated one hadith from at-Tirmidhi in his own Sahih.

A.J. Wensinck mentions Ahmad ibn Hanbal as among at-Tirmidhi's teachers. However, Hoosen states that according to the most reliable sources, at-Tirmidhi never went to Baghdad, nor did he attend any lectures of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Furthermore, at-Tirmidhi never directly narrates from Ahmad ibn Hanbal in his Jami`.

Several of at-Tirmidhi's teachers also taught al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, and an-Nasa'i.

Writings Al-Jami' al-Mukhtasar min as-Sunan 'an Rasul Allah, known as Jami' at-Tirmidhi Al-'Ilal as-Sughra Az-Zuhd Al-'Ilal al-Kubra Ash-Shama'il an-Nabawiyya wa'l-Fada'il al-Mustafawiyya Al-Asma' wa'l-Kuna Kitab at-Tarikh

He is also reported to have a work on Islamic history and an exegesis of the Qur’an, but these are extinct.

Accusation of heresy It is argued that al-Tirmidhi was accused of being a Jahmi heretic and was harshly criticized by some Hanbali followers, including Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 311/923) in his Kitab al-Sunna (Book of the Prophetic Tradition), because he rejected a narration attributed to Mujahid ibn Jabr concerning the explanation of the verse 79 from Surat al-Isra' in the Qur'an about the praiseworthy station of Muhammad known as "al-Maqam al-Mahmud", describing it as a historical example of fanaticism.

The verse is: "And from [part of] the night, pray with it [i.e., recitation of the Qur’ān] as additional [worship] for you; it is expected that your Lord will resurrect you to a praised station."

The Hanbalites interpreted the Praiseworthy Station as the seating of Muhammad on the Throne next to Allah, despite the controversy between those who render it weak and those who render it reliable.

However, the context of the historical sources of the incident allow for the possibility that this was not the author of the Sunan al-Tirmidhi; rather, he was another person who lived in Baghdad, sharing the same nisba (as many others, like al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi), based on the distinct attributes mentioned, such as obscurity in name and scholarship history, his abuse of the teachers of the author of the Sunan al-Tirmidhi and the hadith narrators, and his different theology, which seem to contradict with his traits.

Death

At-Tirmidhi became blind in the last two years of his life, according to adh-Dhahabi. His blindness is said to have been the consequence of excessive weeping, either due to fear of God or over the death of al-Bukhari.

He died on Monday night, 13 Rajab 279 AH (Sunday night, 8 October 892) in Bugh.

At-Tirmidhi is buried on the outskirts of Sherobod, 60 kilometers north of Termez in Uzbekistan. In Termez he is locally known as Abu Isa at-Termezi or "Termez Ota" ("Father of Termez").

Al-Tirmidhi

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