Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi and His Work

Tarikh Baghdad
By
Yasin T. al-Jibouri

Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi is “Abu Bakr” Ahmed ibn Abdul-Majeed ibn Ali ibn
Thabit, commonly known as al-Khateeb (or al-Khatib) al-Baghdadi. “Al-
Khateeb” means lecturer, public speaker or orator. He was born in Hanikiyya,
one of the villages of southwest Baghdad, but some sources place it in ‫ﻏﺰﻳ ﺔ‬
Ghuzayya village of Hijaz, midway between Kufa and Mecca, on Sunday (some
sources say Thursday), Jumada II 24, 392 A.H. which coincided, according to
the Julian Christian calendar, with May 10 or, according to the Gregorian
Christian calendar, with May 16, 1002 A.D., and he died in Baghdad on
Monday, Thul-Hijja 7, 463 A.H., which coincided, according to the Julian
Christian calendar, with September 5, or with the 11th, according to the
Gregorian Christian calendar, 1071 A.D. He was buried next to Bishr al-Hafi
(the barefoot), a Sufi Gnostic who lived from 150 – 236 A.H. (767 – c. 850
A.D.).

Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi was the son of a Hanbali preacher of Darzidjan, and he

began studying at an early age with his father and other mentors. He also
studied other sciences, but his primary interest was hadith, traditions, which he
studied in Baghdad, Basra, Damascus, Isfahan and Nishapur. In 1024 A.D., he
set out on a journey to Nishapur in Khurasan, now northwest of Iran, and
collected more hadith in Ray, south of today’s Tehran, and Isfahan, returning to
Baghdad in 1028 A.D.

While he was an authority on hadith, it was his preaching that gave him fame.
One biographer, namely al-Dhahbi ‫اﻟ ﺬهﺒﻲ‬, says that teachers and preachers of
tradition usually submitted what they had collected to al-Baghdadi before using
them in their lectures or sermons. Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani declared his works
influential in the field of the science of hadith saying, "Seldom did he miss any
science of hadith without writing a whole book about it." He then quoted Abu
Bakr ibn Nuqtah, a Hanbali scholar, as saying, “Every objective person knows
that the scholars of hadith who came after al-Khateeb are indebted to his
works.”

Al-Baghdadi was born Hanbali, but he switched to the Shafi'i School of Muslim
Law, and some writers think that this change in opinion happened after a trip to
Nahrawan in 1038 A.D. Another view is that he was once tutored by Abu
Hamid al-Isfara’ili, a senior Shafi`i faqih (jurist), so he may have thus been
influenced by the ijtihad of imam al-Shafi`i who once said,

‫ على أن ال ينسب الي حرف منه‬- ‫ يقصد علمه‬- ‫وددت أن الخلق تعلموا ھذا العلم‬

“I wish people learned this science (meaning what he learned) provided not a
single character of it is attributed to me.”

Notice the wisdom and sincere modesty of the great Shafi`i imam. Due to the
freedom of expression in Baghdad at the time, al-Baghdadi started many
lectures and held study circles on hadith at the Mansur Mosque.

Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi is famous mostly for his work titled Tarikh Baghdad, a
history of Baghdad, which contains 7,831 biographies of traditionists (narrators
of hadith), senior scholars, dignitaries and men of society and state. In other

٢
words, it is a history of the elites, men of distinction due to scholarship or
accomplishments.

In this book, the author includes the titles of the books which were written and
then lost, thus we are indebted to al-Baghdadi for preserving their titles and the
names of their authors, especially the books for which we find no reference
other than Tarikh Baghdad. From the cultural standpoint, the significance of
Tarikh Baghdad is clear from the way it discloses to us the methods of teaching,
the curricula and criteria of the scholars of the time and their relationship with
their students. It tells us about the schools which spread in the fourth and fifth
Hijri centuries (tenth and eleventh centuries A.D.), the study circles and the
assemblies of scholars at mosques where hadith was narrated and taught.

Tarikh Baghdad also reflects for us the activity of the scholars and the extent of
the spread of the intellectual movement among various Islamic cities. It does so
when it narrates for us the trips which some scholars undertook in pursuit of
knowledge. There is no doubt, however, that the greatest significance of Tarikh
Baghdad lies in the field of hadith: Al-Baghdadi narrates to us the biographies
of about five thousand narrators of hadith from a total of 7,831 biographies
which the book details alphabetically in fourteen volumes. In Paris, France,
Orientalist G. Salomon wrote an Introduction to Tarikh Baghdad in 300 pages.

The author uses isnad (tracking the chain of narrators) with precision when he
narrates, whether for men who were narrators of hadith or those who made
history or recorded literature, thus helping us identify his sources. Since most
books from which he quoted are now lost, some of which we never knew they
existed at all, his quotations through their isnad are of an immense significance
in identifying lost works especially those written in hadith and history. This is
extremely significant when you study the “history of history” or that of hadith.

We have to also point out that the significance of Tarikh Baghdad lies in
mentioning the names of many books, a total of 446 which were all written
during the third, fourth and fifth Islamic centuries in various subjects: sciences
of the Qur’an and methods of recitation, exegesis, hadith, fiqh, tenets, sects,
Sufism, etc. If you compare this figure with what is recorded in Ibn Nadeem’s
famous Fihrist, you will see that al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi mentioned 298 books
which Ibn Nadeem did not. The year of birth of “Abul-Faraj” Muhammed ibn
Ishaq ibn Nadeem is not unknown, but he died in around the year 385 A.H./995
A.D., and his Kitab al-Fihrist, in his own words, is “an Index of the books of all
nations, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, which are extant in the Arabic language

٣
and script, on every branch of knowledge, comprising information as to their
compilers and the classes of their authors, together with the genealogies of those
persons, the dates of their birth, the length of their lives, the times of their death,
the places to which they belonged, their merits and faults, since the beginning,
on every science that has been invented, down to the present period, namely the
Hijri year 377 (987 A.D.).”

One can notice that al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi ignored the biographies of

mathematicians, astrologers and philosophers, and his voluminous work did not
bother about politicians, men of administration, wars, letters, poets or singers.
Actually, he focused on recent centuries only; therefore, Ibn al-Najjar and
others retracted and volunteered to fill the gap.

Perhaps what sets Tarikh Baghdad apart is also its citation of chronicles of the
period with which he dealt. Among the authors who quoted him extensively are:
Ali ibn Hibatullah ibn Makula in his work Al-Ikmal and Abu Saeed Abdul-
Kareem ibn Muhammed al-Sam`ani in his work Al-Ansab.

Below is a short list of some of al-Baghdadi's works, and below it is a longer list
in Arabic. Various writers put the number of the books which al-Khateeb al-
Baghdadi had written between 56 and 80.

 Ta'rikh Baghdad: The History of Baghdad

 al-Kifaya fi ma'rifat usul 'ilm al-riwaya: an early work dealing with
Hadith terminology, which Ibn Hajar praised as influential in the field;
 al-Djami' li-akhlak al-rawi wa-adab al-sami
 Takyid al-'ilm: Questions whether putting traditions into writing is
forbidden
 Sharaf ashab al-hadith: Centers around the significance of
traditionalists;
 al-Sabik wa 'l-lahik: dealing with hadith narrators of a particular type;
 al-Mu'tanif fi takmilat al-Mu'talif wa 'l-mukhtalif: Correct spelling and
pronunciation of names
 al-Muttafik wa 'l-muftarik
 Talkhis al-mutashabih fi 'l-rasm wa-himayat ma ashkala minhu min
nawadir al-tashif wa 'l-wahm
 al-Asma' al-mubhama fi 'l-anba' al-muhkama: identifying unnamed
individuals mentioned in hadith
 al-Rihla fi talab al-hadith
 Iktida' al-'ilm al-'amal

٤
‫‪Here is a list of thirty of his works in Arabic for you:‬‬

‫تاريخ بغداد‬ ‫‪.١‬‬

‫حديث ابن عمر في ترائي الھالل للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.٢‬‬
‫التطفيل وحكايات الطفيليين‬ ‫‪.٣‬‬
‫نصيحة أھل الحديث‬ ‫‪.٤‬‬
‫حديث الستة من التابعين‬ ‫‪.٥‬‬
‫غنية الملتمس إيضاح الملتبس‬ ‫‪.٦‬‬
‫األسماء المبھمة في األنباء المحكمة‬ ‫‪.٧‬‬
‫تالي تلخيص المتشابه‬ ‫‪.٨‬‬
‫موضح أوھام الجمع والتفريق‬ ‫‪.٩‬‬
‫االحتجاج بالشافعي‬ ‫‪.١٠‬‬
‫السابق والالحق في تباعد ما بين وفاة راويين عن شيخ واحد‬ ‫‪.١١‬‬
‫المتفق والمفترق‬ ‫‪.١٢‬‬
‫الفصل للوصل المدرج في النقل‬ ‫‪.١٣‬‬
‫اقتضاء العلم العمل للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.١٤‬‬
‫الجامع ألخالق الراوي وآداب السامع للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.١٥‬‬
‫الرحلة في طلب الحديث للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.١٦‬‬
‫الفقيه والمتفقه للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.١٧‬‬
‫الكفاية في علم الرواية للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.١٨‬‬
‫تقييد العلم للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.١٩‬‬
‫شرف أصحاب الحديث للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.٢٠‬‬
‫البخالء للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.٢١‬‬
‫تلخيص المتشابه في الرسم‬ ‫‪.٢٢‬‬
‫القول في علم النجوم للخطيب‬ ‫‪.٢٣‬‬
‫الزھد والرقائق للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.٢٤‬‬
‫تاريخ بغداد وذيوله ط العلمية‬ ‫‪.٢٥‬‬
‫صالة التسبيح للخطيب‬ ‫‪.٢٦‬‬
‫عوالي مالك رواية الخطيب‬ ‫‪.٢٧‬‬
‫مسلسل العيدين للكتاني وللخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.٢٨‬‬
‫ذكر الجھر بالبسملة مختصرا‬ ‫‪.٢٩‬‬
‫أربع مجالس للخطيب البغدادي‬ ‫‪.٣٠‬‬

‫‪References‬‬

‫‪1.‬‬ ‫‪Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition. Sellheim, R. Brill online.‬‬

‫‪2009.‬‬

‫‪٥‬‬
 2. Controversy and Its Effects in the Biographical Tradition of Al-
Khateeb Al-Baghdadi. Douglas, Fedwa Malti. Studia Islamica 46. 1977.
3. Ibn Hajar, Nuzhah Al-Nathr, pp. 45–51, published with Al-Nukat
of Ali ibn Hassan, Dar Ibn al-Jawzi, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.