Sa'id ibn Mansur

Sa'id ibn Mansur ibn Shu'ba (Abu Uthman) was a Sunni traditionist — a scholar who collected and transmitted hadith, the reported sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad — active in the late eighth and early ninth centuries CE. Biographical sources such as al-Dhahabi's Siyar a'lam al-nubala report that he was born in the Khurasani district of Jawzjan (in present-day northern Afghanistan) and raised in Balkh, hence his cluster of regional epithets: al-Khurasani, al-Marwazi, al-Talaqani, al-Balkhi. Like many hadith scholars of his age he undertook a rihla, a journey in search of reports, studying with teachers spread across Iraq and the Hijaz; named masters include Sufyan ibn 'Uyayna, Hammad ibn Zayd, Hushaym ibn Bashir and Abu 'Awana. He eventually settled in Mecca as a mujawir — a long-term resident living beside the sacred precinct — and there he is reported to have composed his Sunan.

That Sunan is a musannaf-style work, meaning it is organized by legal and thematic chapters and gathers not only Prophetic hadith but also athar, the opinions of Companions and later authorities. Only portions survive, but they make it one of the earliest collections of its kind, predating the famous Sahih works of al-Bukhari and Muslim. Later critics graded him reliable (thiqa) and a hafiz, a scholar of vast memorized material; among those said to have transmitted from him are Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Dawud and Muslim. He died in Mecca in the month of Ramadan, 227 AH (842 CE).