| Religion: | Islam |
| Era: | Islamic golden age |
| Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yazīd Ibn Mājah al-Rabʿī al-Qazwīnī | |
| Ibn Mājah | |
| Birth Date: | 824 CE |
| Birth Place: | Qazvin, Persia, Abbasid Caliphate |
| Death Date: | 887 or 889 CE |
| Death Place: | Qazvin, Persia, Abbasid Caliphate |
| Ethnicity: | Persian[1] |
| Denomination: | Sunni |
| Creed: | Athari |
| Notable Works: | Sunan Ibn Mājah, Kitāb at-Tafsīr and Kitāb at-Tārīkh |
| Main Interests: | Hadith, Fiqh |
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yazīd Ibn Mājah al-Rabʿī al-Qazwīnī[2] (Arabic: ابو عبد الله محمد بن يزيد بن ماجه الربعي القزويني; (b. 209/824, d. 273/887) commonly known as Ibn Mājah, was a medieval scholar of hadith of Persian[3] origin. He compiled the last of Sunni Islam's six canonical hadith collections, Sunan Ibn Mājah.[4] [5]
BiographyHe left his hometown to travel the Islamic world visiting Iraq, Makkah, the Levant and Egypt. He studied under Ibn Abi Shaybah (through whom came over a quarter of al-Sunan), Muḥammad ibn ʻAbdillāh ibn Numayr, Jubārah ibn al-Mughallis, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī, ʻAbdullāh ibn Muʻāwiyah, Hishām ibn ʻAmmār, Muḥammad ibn Rumḥ, Dāwūd ibn Rashīd and others from their era. Abū Yaʻlā al-Khalīlī praised Ibn Mājah as "reliable (thiqah), prominent, agreed upon, a religious authority, possessing knowledge and the capability to memorize."
According to al-Dhahabī, Ibn Mājah died on approximately February 19, 887 CE/with eight days remaining of the month of Ramadan, 273 AH, or, according to al-Kattānī, in either 887/273 or 889/275. He died in Qazwin.[6]
What he compiled/didAl-Dhahabī mentioned the following of Ibn Mājah's works:[4]
The last two, though praised by scholars, have been lost. [7]
See main article: Sunan ibn Majah. The Sunan consists of 1,500 chapters and about 4,000 hadith. Upon completing it, he read it to Abu Zur’a al-Razi, a hadith authority of his time, who commented, "I think that were people to get their hands on this, the other collections, or most of them, would be rendered obsolete."