Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani

Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam ibn Nafi' al-Himyari — their client — Abu Bakr al-San'ani, the hafiz of Yemen and author of the Musannaf, a trustworthy hafiz and celebrated compiler in the judgement of the rijal critics, of the ninth generation-layer; he died in 211 AH ¹.

Ibn Hajar writes: "Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam ibn Nafi' al-Himyari, their client, Abu Bakr al-San'ani: trustworthy hafiz, famous compiler; he went blind late in life and his memory changed, and he held Shii leanings; of the ninth layer; died in the year two hundred and eleven" ¹. The editors of the jarh-and-ta'dil corpus count him among the imams of his age whose word on narrators is heard: "the Imam Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam ibn Nafi' al-Himyari, their client, Abu Bakr al-San'ani, author of the Musannaf," and al-Dhahabi calls him "one of the luminaries; he composed the compilations" ².

Abd al-Razzaq took from Ma'mar ibn Rashid, Ibn Jurayj and the senior masters of the Hijaz and Yemen, making him the link between the followers of the followers and the great compiling imams; his isnads through Ma'mar from al-Zuhri and through Ibn Jurayj from Ata' and Ibn Abbas recur throughout al-Bukhari's al-Tarikh al-Kabir ³. Al-Dhahabi gave him a long entry in Siyar A'lam al-Nubala, styling him the scholar of Yemen ⁴.

Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani was a Yemeni imam and memoriser who gathered hadith into his great Musannaf; the leading critics studied under him, so he is one of the most important links in second-century isnad.

• Taqrib al-Tahdhib entry 4554 (Alexandrina scan, c. p. 327); the phrase "he went blind late in life and changed" survives the scan's weak OCR.
• His birth year is not legible in the scan (most printings give 126 AH); it is not asserted here from that source.
• "He held Shii leanings" is quoted from the Taqrib's own jarh wa-ta'dil text, confined to that genre; it is not the museum's verdict.