Virtues of the Imam Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal: Volume One

Notes

٥١٢ 512 Notes 1 On Ibn Ḥanbal as “an indispensable authority and resource for the fashioning of authentically Muslim selves,” see Sizgorich, Violence and Belief, 231–71 (quote at 237). 2 This is the most common voweling (al-Dhahabī, Al-Mushtabih, 491) though al-Muʿaddil is also possible (Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr, 1299). For the meanings of this root and its derivatives , see Tyan, “ʿAdl” and sources cited. 3 The beginning of a new chain of transmitters that will intersect with the previous one is sometimes indicated by the letter ḥāʾ. As the usage is inconsistent I have not duplicated it. 4 Not otherwise attested but possibly a variant of Mihrāwī, “of Mihrawān,” a region near Hamadhān (al-Samʿānī, Al-Ansāb, 5:415). Al-Turkī emends to the more common al-Harawī (of Herat). 5 The capital of what was then the province of Khurasan. Marv, now called Mary, is today the capital of Turkmenistan. 6 So voweled in al-Dhahabī, Al-Mushtabih, 182. Names with this suffix may be voweled -awayh or –uwayh (Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr, 910n1), the choice now often being a matter of convention or conjecture. I have used attested vowelings whenever available. 7 “Full-blooded” means that he was born into the tribe, as opposed to joining it by entering into a patronage relationship with one of its members, as non-Arab converts to Islam sometimes did (though far less commonly than previously thought). See Bernards and Nawas, eds., Patronate, esp. Bulliet, “Conversion-Based Patronage,” 246–62. 8 Ibn Ḥanbal’s ancestors had come from Arabia and settled in the newly founded city of Basra, then moved east with the Arab conquests and settled in Marv. 9 A major province of the Abbasid Empire. It included the regions today called northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, southern Turkmenistan, and southern Uzbekistan. 10 A town that lay on what is today the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. The modern town is on the Iranian side. 11 TherevolutionthatbroughttheAbbasiddynastytopowerbeganinthe740sinKhurasan. Those who joined it, and their descendants, enjoyed particular privileges under the new regime. Though Ibn Ḥanbal’s uncle Isḥāq was later to invoke this connection, it evidently “meant nothing to Ibn Ḥanbal himself” (Cook, Commanding Right, 111). 12 Dhū l-Qarnayn is a figure in the Qurʾan (Q Kahf 18:83ff.) sometimes identified with Alexander the Great. Hadith reports in which the Prophet Muḥammad gives personal advice ٥١٣ 513 Notes based on detailed knowledge of future events are generally agreed to be later fabrications ; see al-Turkī, Manāqib, 2nd ed., 15n4. 13 For discussion of Ibn Ḥanbal’s lineage and its social meanings, see Hurvitz, Formation, 27ff., and Cook, Commanding Right, 110–11. Another source, Ibn al-Dāʿī, gives a different lineage for Ibn Ḥanbal, calling him a member of the clan of Zuhayr ibn Ḥurqūṣ. This ancestry would appear to link him with the Khārijī Ḥurqūṣ ibn Zuhayr, as well as with an obscure group of sectarians called the Hurqūṣiyyah, who seem to have held a view of God denounced by critics as anthropomorphic (van Ess, Theologie, 3:449–51). 14 This is the prophet Abraham. 15 This name may be al-Bardaʿī, from Bardaʿah, a town in Azerbaijan, or al-Bardhaʿī, a maker or seller of the saddle-cloth or mattress-pad called bardhaʿah (or bardaʿah), for which see 45.3 (al-Dhahabī, Al-Mushtabih, 32). 16 Fī baʿḍ kutubihi: though kitāb is often translated as “book,” it can mean any document, including a note, a letter, a pamphlet, a treatise, etc. 17 Cf. Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr, 20 and 93, and al-Dhahabī, Al-Mushtabih, 13. 18 From a poem by Qurayṭ ibn Unayf or Abū l-Ghūl al-Ṭahawī; see al-Turkī, Manāqib, 2nd ed., 19n1. 19 Daghfal was a genealogist of the early Islamic period; Qaʿqāʿ was an early Umayyad figure noted for fighting in battles against Shiʿa partisans and famous for his generosity; Muḥārib (d. 116/734–35) was a Hadith scholar, jurist, and judge in Kufa; and ʿImrān ibn Ḥiṭṭān (d. 84/703–4) was the greatest poet of the dissident Khārijī sect. 20 A tribal chief (d. ca. 14 or 15/635–36) and convert to Islam famous for his later (and apparently much exaggerated) role in the conquest of Iraq. 21 Al-Turkī takes the subject here to be ʿAbd al-Malik and emends the text to ʿalayhi and yu...