Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami

Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami (1930 – 20 December 2017) was an Indian-born Saudi hadith scholar, best known for his critical examination of the theories of Ignác Goldziher, David Margoliouth and Joseph Schacht on hadith. ^{1 2}

He was born at Mau in India early in 1930, then in Azamgarh district, hence his nisba; Wikidata gives 1932. He studied at Darul Uloom Deoband (1952), at al-Azhar (MA, 1955) and at the University of Cambridge (PhD, 1966), whose thesis appeared as 'Studies in Early Hadith Literature'. ^{1 2}

He was professor emeritus at King Saud University and chaired its department of Islamic Studies; he was also curator of the National Public Library of Qatar, associate professor at Umm al-Qura University, visiting scholar at Michigan, Princeton and Colorado, and visiting fellow at St Cross College, Oxford. ¹

The article says much of his work challenged Western scholarship on hadith, in particular by showing the written activity in hadith during the lifetime of the Prophet. His books include 'Dirasat fi al-Hadith al-Nabawi', 'Kuttab al-Nabi', 'Manhaj al-Naqd 'ind al-Muhaddithin', 'The History of the Qur'anic Text' and 'On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence'; he edited Ibn al-Madini's 'al-'Ilal', Muslim's 'al-Tamyiz', 'Urwa ibn al-Zubayr's 'Maghazi', the 'Muwatta', 'Sahih Ibn Khuzayma' and 'Sunan Ibn Maja'. ¹

He received the King Faisal Prize for Islamic Studies in 1980, for studies on the hadith. ^{1 3} He died in Riyadh on 20 December 2017, aged 87. ^{1 2}

Wikidata listed articles on him in thirteen Wikipedia editions on 7 November 2026. ²

• English Wikipedia article, revision of 14 June 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q13403447. ²

• King Faisal Prize laureate list, revision of 31 October 2026. ³