| Religion: | Islam |
| Occupation: | Muhaddith, Scholar, Muslim Jurist, Historian, Biographer |
| Era: | Islamic golden age |
| Ibn al-Sam'ani | |
| Al-Ḥāfiẓ | |
| Birth Date: | (506 AH/1113 AD) |
| Birth Place: | Merv |
| Death Date: | (562 AH/1166 AD) |
| Denomination: | Sunni |
| Jurisprudence: | Shafi'i[1] |
| Creed: | Ash'ari[2] |
| Main Interests: | Fiqh, Hadith, History, Tafsir |
| Works: | Kitāb al-Ansāb, History of Baghdad |
| Influences: | Al-Shafi'i Abu Hasan al-Ash'ari Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi Aḥmad Samʿānī Ibn Asakir |
| Influenced: | Ibn al-Athir Ibn al-Dubaythi |
Ibn al-Samʿānī (1113–1166), full name Abū Saʿd ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abī Bakr Muḥammad ibn Abi ʾl-Muẓaffar Manṣūr al-Tamīmī al-Marwazī al-Shafiʿī al-Samʿānī, nicknamed Tāj al-Islām (Crown of Islam) and Qiwām al-Dīn (Support of the Faith), was an Arab Muslim scholar of biography, history, hadith, Shafi'i jurisprudence and scriptural exegesis.[3] [4] According to Ibn al-Subki, Ibn al-Sam'ani was considered the second greatest hadith scholar of his time after his companion and master, Ibn Asakir.[5]
A native of Merv in central Asia, al-Samʿānī's formal education began at the age of two under the tutelage first of his father and then of his uncles. He travelled widely throughout his life in search of learning. He composed over 50 works, but many are lost. His magnum opus is the Kitāb al-Ansāb, a vast biographical dictionary of scholars with over 10,000 entries.
A long but incomplete genealogy of ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Samʿānī is known. He belonged to the Samʿān branch of the Arab tribe of Tamīm. He was born in Merv on 10 February 1113. His grandfather, Abu ʾl-Muẓaffar Manṣūr (died 1096), had switched from the Ḥanafī to the Shāfiʿī school of law, and his father, Abū Bakr Muḥammad (born 1074), was an authority on Shāfiʿiyya, ḥadīth and preaching, who took the two-year-old ʿAbd al-Karīm with him to lectures on ḥadīth. In 1115, the young ʿAbd al-Karīm accompanied his father and elder brother to Nīshāpūr for further training in ḥadīth. His father died shortly after returning to Merv in 1116, and entrusted his son to his two brothers.
Under his uncles' guidance, ʿAbd al-Karīm studied adab (etiquette), ʿarabiyya (Arabic language and literature), fiqh (jurisprudence) and the Qurʾān. He began his formal ṭalab al-ʿilm (search for knowledge) when he was not yet twenty years old. Accompanied by his uncle Aḥmad al-Samʿānī, he went to Nīshāpūr to study the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj. He also studied in Ṭūs.
Although he made his permanent residence in Merv, where he also taught, Ibn al-Samʿānī travelled extensively as part of his personal ṭalab al-ʿilm. He twice performed the Ḥajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. His travels kept him away from Merv for three long periods: 1135–1143, 1145–1151 and 1154–1157. On his last trip, he was accompanied by his son, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (1143–1220). Besides Mecca, he visited Medina, Damascus, Iṣfahān, Hamadān, Khwārazm, Samarqand, Bukhārā, Balkh and Herāt, always stopping at the schools. He even visited Jerusalem, which at the time was under Christian rule.
Ibn al-Samʿānī died in Merv on 26 December 1166.
Ibn al-Samʿānī wrote over 50 works. Many of them are lost, presumably victims of the Mongol sack of Merv in 1221. Some of his works are excerpted by Yāqūt al-Rūmī, who knew ʿAbd al-Raḥīm and had access to the family library.
Ibn al-Samʿānī wrote at least three biographical dictionaries:
The Ansāb covers scholars from eastern Islamic lands from all schools of fiqh. In that respect it has been compared to the earlier works of Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Fārisī as "a work of conciliation" at a time "of increasing inter-school rivalries", in the words of Chase Robinson. Many Muslim scholars offered praise of al-Samʿānī for the Ansāb: Ibn ʿAsākir, Ibn al-Athīr, Ibn Khallikān, al-Dhahabī, al-Ṣafadī, Ibn Nāṣir al-Dīn and Ibn al-ʿImād. The work was more critically received by his contemporary Ibn al-Jawzī, whose critique was reproduced in Ibn Kathīr's short biography of al-Samʿānī.
Ibn al-Samʿānī also wrote on history and customs:
Several of Ibn al-Samʿānī's lost works are known by title. In his Adab al-imlāʾ wa ʾl-istimlāʾ, he mentions a fuller work on the subject, Ṭirāz al-dhahab fī adab al-ṭalab. Yāqūt mentions how he read Ibn al-Samʿānī's own copy of Taʾrīkh Marw, one of his early works. Three other biographical works are known: Wafayāt al-mutaʾakhkhirīn min al-ruwāt, Muʿjām al-shuyūkh (biographies of his son's teachers) and Muʿjām al-buldān.