Abu Jafar al-Tirmidhi
- Died
- 295 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu Jafar al-Tirmidhi (c. 200–295 AH / 816–907 CE) was an Iraqi jurist and hadith scholar who served as the leading Shafi'i legal authority in Baghdad prior to Ibn Surayj.
Early Life and Education
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Nasr, known by his kunya Abu Jafar al-Tirmidhi, was born in Dhu al-Hijjah 200 AH (816 CE), though another report places his birth in 210 AH. Originally from Tirmidh, he moved to Baghdad, where he settled and taught. He stated that he spent twenty-nine years writing down and collecting hadith.
Al-Tirmidhi originally studied jurisprudence according to the school of Abu Hanifa and examined the legal opinions of Malik ibn Anas. According to biographical sources, while resting in the Prophet's Mosque in Medina during a pilgrimage journey, he experienced a dream in which he asked the Prophet ﷺ about following Abu Hanifa's rulings, to which the Prophet replied in the negative; when he asked about Malik, the Prophet instructed him to take only what agreed with his Sunnah; and when asked about al-Shafi'i, the Prophet affirmed that al-Shafi'i followed his Sunnah and refuted those who opposed it. Following this dream, al-Tirmidhi traveled to Egypt, where he transcribed the legal books of al-Shafi'i and fully embraced his school.
In hadith and legal transmission, his teachers included Yahya ibn Bukayr, Ibrahim ibn al-Mundhir al-Hizami, Yusuf ibn Adi, Ubayd Allah ibn Umar al-Qawariri, al-Rabi ibn Sulayman, and Zuhayr ibn Abbad.
Scholarly Standing and Students
Al-Tirmidhi became the principal head (ar'as) and most prominent jurist of the Shafi'i school in Iraq of his time. He held several authoritative personal legal derivations (wujuh) in the madhhab; notably, al-Nawawi recorded that al-Tirmidhi ruled definitively that the hair of the Prophet ﷺ was ritually pure, diverging on this matter from the majority of early Shafi'i scholars.
A substantial group of scholars transmitted hadith from him, including al-Tabarani, the judge Ahmad ibn Kamil, Abd al-Baqi ibn Qani', Abu Bakr al-Shafi'i, Ahmad ibn Yusuf ibn Khallad al-Nasibi, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Sima al-Mujabbir. Al-Daraqutni evaluated him as "trustworthy, dependable, and a devout ascetic" (thiqa ma'mun nasik), remarking that none among the Shafi'is of Iraq was more prominent or pious. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi similarly described him as trustworthy, learned, and devoted to otherworldly detachment.
Asceticism and Creed
Biographical accounts emphasize al-Tirmidhi's rigorous asceticism, austerity in food, and patience with poverty. The grammarian Abu Ishaq al-Zajjaj reported that al-Tirmidhi maintained himself on an allowance of four dirhams per month and never asked for assistance from anyone. Muhammad ibn Musa ibn Hammad recorded that al-Tirmidhi once survived for seventeen days (or over ten days according to another transmission) on just five habbas—or three—by purchasing turnips and consuming one piece each day.
On theological matters, Ahmad ibn Uthman al-Simsar related that a questioner asked al-Tirmidhi regarding the hadith of God's descent (al-nuzul) to the lowest heaven and whether highness remains above Him. Al-Tirmidhi answered: "The descent is intelligible, the modality is unknown, faith in it is obligatory, and questioning it is an innovation."
Death
Towards the end of his life, al-Tirmidhi suffered from severe cognitive deterioration (ikhtilat). He died on 11 Muharram 295 AH (October 907 CE), having preserved his gray hair without dyeing it.
Answer updated
List of Works
This work is an early collection of Quranic exegesis structured as a specialized monograph (juz'). It assembles exegetical traditions and interpretive statements transmitted from four authorities of the second century AH.