Waki' ibn al-Jarrah

Waki' ibn al-Jarrah ibn Malih ibn 'Adi al-Ru'asi, Abu Sufyan of Kufa, was the leading memoriser of Iraq in the second Islamic century. Born in 128 or 129 AH, he died in 197 AH as reported by Abu Hisham al-Rifa'i. ¹

He took up hadith as a boy and heard Hisham ibn 'Urwa, Sulayman al-A'mash, Isma'il ibn Abi Khalid, Ibn 'Awn, Ibn Jurayj, al-Awza'i, Talha ibn 'Amr of Mecca, Zakariyya ibn Abi Za'ida, Sufyan, Shu'ba, Isra'il, Sharik and many more. He carried al-A'mash's monthly stipend to him and received five hadiths a month in return, and Sufyan al-Thawri would call the boy over, marvel at his memory, and test him on what he had heard. ²

He was counted among the oceans of learning; Ibn 'Ammar said no one in Kufa in his day was more learned or more versed in hadith. At 'Abbadan he dictated some fifteen hundred reports and slipped in only four, and whatever he heard from al-Thawri he memorised and wrote down at home. His students included Ibn al-Mubarak and al-Fadl ibn Musa al-Sinani — both older than he — plus Yahya ibn Adam, 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi, al-Humaydi, Musaddad, 'Ali ibn al-Madini, Ahmad, Ibn Ma'in, Ishaq, the sons of Abu Shayba, Abu Khaythama (may God be pleased with him), Abu Kurayb and Ibn Numayr. ¹

Ibn Sa'd called him trustworthy, secure, exalted, a proof and a man of many reports. When he came to Syria the people of Damascus thronged around him in the mosque after Friday prayer until nightfall, and his son Malih later saw the bruising that day's crush had left on his father's body. ³