Al-Darimi

Abu Muhammad Abdullah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Fadl ibn Bahram al-Darimi al-Tamimi al-Samarqandi was born in Samarkand in 181 AH (797–798 CE). His nisba “al-Darimi” is traced either to the Darim ibn Malik branch of the Banu Tamim tribe or to the village of Darim near Samarkand; the sources differ.

After his first schooling at home he set out on long journeys in search of hadith: he studied in the cities of Khorasan, including Merv under Nadr ibn Shumayl, heard traditions in Basra at the age of seventeen or eighteen, and then learned from teachers in Kufa, Baghdad, Wasit, Fustat in Egypt, Damascus, Mecca and Medina. His “Sunan” cites traditions from more than two hundred shaykhs.

Back in Samarkand he taught hadith and Quranic exegesis. Major scholars such as Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi transmitted hadith from him. In his last years he was offered the post of chief judge (qadi) of Samarkand but declined, preferring a life of scholarship.

His principal work is the hadith collection “Musnad”, better known as “Sunan al-Darimi”: it is arranged in books and chapters and holds about 3,500 hadiths. Some scholars, among them Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, counted it as the sixth of the “six sound books” in place of Ibn Majah’s collection. He is also credited with a Quranic commentary, “Kitab al-Tafsir”, and a work called “Al-Jami‘”.

Al-Darimi died on the Day of Tarwiyah in 255 AH (869 CE) and was buried on the Day of Arafah; the funeral prayer is reported to have been led by the emir of Samarkand. His mausoleum stands in the village of Ispandi in the Toyloq district of the Samarkand region; the mausoleum and the adjoining congregational mosque were restored in 2000.