Skip to content
Wellsprings
Ibn Abi Shayba

Ibn Abi Shayba

775 CE–849 CE · Baghdad

Abu Bakr ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Shayba al-ʿAbsi al-Kufi (159–235 AH / 775–849 CE) was a Sunni jurist and hadith master of Kufa, regarded by many specialists as among the four foremost hadith authorities of his generation, alongside Ahmad ibn Hanbal, ʿAli ibn al-Madini, and Yahya ibn Maʿin. He is best known for his al-Musannaf, one of the earliest surviving topically arranged hadith compilations, gathering some 37,000 reports organized by legal and doctrinal subject; he also compiled a Musnad and a work on adab (manners). Active during the early Abbasid period, he was a protégé of the caliph al-Mutawakkil and was encouraged to teach traditionalist (anti-Muʿtazilite) hadith in the mosques of Baghdad. His narrations are drawn upon across the major Sunni hadith collections.

See Ibn Abi Shayba’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →

Stop 1 of 2

BaghdadIraq

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Baghdad

Major Mizrahi center; home of Yosef Hayyim (Ben Ish Chai).

Across the traditions, in Baghdad at the same time

See other sages who lived in Baghdad→

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Ibn Abi Shayba’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(5)