Dates of narrators and their deaths (tawarikh al-ruwat)

Type sixty of al-Nawawi's al-Taqrib is "dates" — of narrators' births, of their hearing, of their arrival in a given city — and their "deaths"; he calls it an important art by which one knows whether a hadith is connected or broken. ¹ Al-Suyuti explains it in Tadrib al-Rawi, giving examples of its use, its books, and then "branches" with choice dates. ^{1 2}

Al-Nawawi says: some people claimed to narrate from others; the dates were examined, and it turned out they claimed to have heard from them years after their death. ¹ One example: Isma'il ibn Ayyash tested a man by asking in what year he had written from Khalid ibn Ma'dan; the man said 113, and Isma'il replied: you claim to have heard from him seven years after he died — for on one view he died in 106, with other years also given. ^{1 3} Al-Hakim asked Muhammad ibn Hatim al-Kashshi, who was narrating from Abd ibn Humayd, when he was born; he said 260, and al-Hakim said: this man heard from Abd thirteen years after his death. ³ The editor Muhammad Awwama defends the reading ikhtibaran ("as a test") against ikhtiyaran found in some printings. ¹

The judge Hafs ibn Ghiyath said: if you suspect a shaykh, reckon with him by the two ages — his age and the age of the one he wrote from. Sufyan al-Thawri said: when the narrators made use of lying, we made use of dates against them. ³ Hassan ibn Yazid said: we found no help against liars like dates; we say to the shaykh, in what year were you born? and once he admits his birth we know whether he is truthful or lying; the editor notes that Tarikh Baghdad and al-Jami' give the name as Hassan ibn Zayd. ³

Abu Abd Allah al-Humaydi said: three of the hadith sciences must be given priority — hidden defects, names that look alike but differ, and the death-dates of shaykhs — and there is no book on it. ⁴ Al-Suyuti explains that he meant no exhaustive book, for there are books: the Wafayat of Ibn Zabr and of Ibn Qani', with supplements to Ibn Zabr by Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad al-Kattani, then Abu Muhammad al-Akfani, then Ibn al-Mufaddal, then al-Mundhiri, then the sharif Izz al-Din al-Husayni, then Ahmad ibn Aybak al-Dimyati, then al-Iraqi. ⁴ The editor supplies their death years and adds books the commentator missed, such as Khalifa ibn Khayyat's al-Tabaqat and Ya'qub ibn Sufyan's al-Ma'rifa wa-l-Tarikh. ⁴

Al-Nawawi then lists selected branches. The first is the Prophet's age: the sound view is sixty-three, and the same for his two companions Abu Bakr and Umar; for the Prophet sixty, sixty-five and sixty-two were also said. ^{2 5} On his death al-Nawawi says he was taken in the forenoon of Monday 12 Rabi' I, 11 AH; al-Suyuti says the sira scholars do not differ on this except over the day of the month: most say the twelfth, Musa ibn Uqba and al-Layth ibn Sa'd say the first, and Sulayman al-Taymi the second. ^{6 7} He reports from al-Iraqi that al-Suhayli found the majority view hard to square with reckoning, since the Day of Arafa in the Farewell Pilgrimage was a Friday, so that 12 Rabi' I could not have been a Monday whatever the lengths of the months; al-Iraqi concluded that, as a matter of dating, the view of al-Taymi and those who agree with him is stronger. ^{7 8 9}

Another is that dating begins from the Hijra: al-Suyuti cites al-Bukhari's report from Sahl ibn Sa'd that they counted neither from the mission nor from the Prophet's death but from his arrival in Medina, Ibn al-Musayyab's report that Ali advised Umar to count from the day of the Hijra, Ibn Sirin's account of Umar's consultation on the starting point, and that Uthman advised making Muharram the first month, all in the year 17. ^{10 11 12} See the adoption of the Hijri calendar.

Then come the deaths and ages of the Ten promised Paradise, with the caution that some are disputed; then two Companions who lived sixty years in the Jahiliyya and sixty in Islam and died in Medina in 54: Hakim ibn Hizam and Hassan ibn Thabit. ^{13 14} Then the founders of the followed schools: Sufyan al-Thawri, Malik, Abu Hanifa, al-Shafi'i and Ahmad; then the authors of the relied-upon books: al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa'i; and then seven hafizes "who wrote well and whose works brought great benefit": al-Daraqutni, al-Hakim, Abd al-Ghani ibn Sa'id, Abu Nu'aym, Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Bayhaqi and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi. ^{15 16 17 18 19}