Ali ibn al-Madini

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abdillah ibn Ja'far al-Madini (161/778 - 234/849) was a scholar of hadith - the reports of the Prophet Muhammad's words and deeds - born in Basra, in southern Iraq, to a family with Medinan roots (hence "al-Madini"). He became one of the most respected specialists in two technical sciences: 'ilal (the hidden defects that flaw an otherwise sound-looking chain of transmission) and rijal (the critical evaluation of the men who passed hadith down). Later Sunni tradition ranks him, alongside Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Yahya ibn Ma'in, and Ibn Abi Shayba, among the great early authorities of the field. He studied under transmitters such as Sufyan ibn 'Uyayna, and his own students included Muhammad al-Bukhari, who reportedly said he felt small before no scholar except Ibn al-Madini - a remark preserved in the biographical literature.

His later life intersected with the mihna, the Abbasid "inquisition" (begun 218/833) that pressed scholars to affirm the Mu'tazili doctrine that the Qur'an was created in time. Reports - notably in al-Dhahabi - hold that, under pressure, Ibn al-Madini outwardly assented, then afterward renounced that position. How freely or unwillingly he complied, and how severely contemporaries judged him for it, were debated then and by later writers; the site presents these as reported assessments, not settled fact. He died in Samarra, the Abbasid capital of that era, in 234/849. Numerous works are attributed to him, including treatises on 'ilal and on narrators.