Said ibn al-Musayyib

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Said Ibn Al-Musayyib (637-715) lived in Medina was among the foremost authorities in "hadith", jurisprudence and Quranic interpretation ("tafseer") among the "taba'een" (generation succeeding the "Sahaba").

Life & Contribution to Islamic Learning

He was born in 637, during the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab and had the opportunity to meet most of the "sahaba" including, ‘Umar, Uthman and Ali ibn Abi Talib. Said ibn al-Musayyib was well-known for his piety, righteousness and profound devotion to Allah. Everyone accepted him, during his lifetime, as the greatest figure in the field of hadith. He began, as did Hasan al-Basri in Basra, to give opinions and deliver verdicts on legal matters when he was around twenty years of age. The Companions admired him greatly. On one occasion, Abdullah ibn Umar remarked, "If [Muhammad] had seen that young man, he would have been very pleased with him." [M, ‘Ajjaj al-Khatib, al-Sunna Qabl al-Tadwin, 485]

He refused the oath of allegiance to the Caliph Al-Walid I (r.705-715), and although Hisham, the governor of Medina, had him beaten daily until the stick was broken, he did not yield. When his friends, such as Masruq ibn al-Ajda' and Tawus, advised him to consent to al-Walid’s caliphate in order to be saved from being beaten, he answered: ‘People follow us in acting. If we consent, how will we be able to explain this to them?’ [I. Sa‘d, Tabaqat, 5.126]

Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib married the daughter of Abu Hurayrah in order to be closer to him and to learn better the Traditions that he narrated. The Caliph Abd al-Malik requested that he marry his daughter (born of his marriage to Abu Hurayra’s daughter) to his son, Hisham. Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib refused and, in the face of increasing pressures and threats, he offered her to Ibn Abi Wada’, who stayed in the "madrasa". [Ibid., 5.138; Dhahabi, Siyaru A’lam al-Nubala’, 4.234]

"Ahadith"

Imam Shafi‘i took as unquestionably authentic the "ahadith" that Sa‘id ibn al-Mussayyib narrated without mentioning the Companion from whom he received them. This means that, in the view of Imam Shafi‘i, Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib was of the same rank as the Companions in knowledge and narration of the "ahadith". Those who received Traditions from Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib include Ata ibn Abi Rabah, Qatadah, Muhammad al-Baqir, a great grandson of Ali’s, az-Zuhri and Yahya ibn Sa‘id al-Ansari, among others.

ee also

*Taba'een
*Salaf

References