al-Badr ibn al-Haytham
- Died
- 317 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu al-Qasim al-Badr ibn al-Haytham (d. 317 AH / 929 CE) was a centenarian judge (qadi) and hadith transmitter from Kufa who settled in Baghdad.
Lineage and Early Life
He was Abu al-Qasim Badr ibn al-Haytham ibn Khalaf ibn Khalid ibn Rashid ibn al-Dahhak ibn al-Nu'man ibn Muharriq ibn al-Nu'man ibn al-Mundhir al-Lakhmi, tracing his ancestry back to the Lakhmid rulers of al-Hira. His family formed a prominent dynasty of judicial officers and scholars.
He was among the long-lived centenarians (mu'ammarun). He recounted that he rode with his father in 215 AH to meet an official of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun, and then rode to meet the vizier Ali ibn Isa in 315 AH, spanning an interval of one hundred years between both rides. Ibn Shahin stated that he reached 116 years of age, while al-Daraqutni reported that he lived to be 117 years old. Although he lived during the time of the senior Kufan traditionist Abu Nu'aym al-Fadl ibn Dukayn, he did not record narrations directly from him.
Career and Hadith Transmission
Badr ibn al-Haytham held the judiciary of Kufa before moving to Baghdad, where he resided and taught. He began hearing and writing hadith relatively late in life, after having reached forty years of age.
He transmitted narrations from a circle of senior Kufan and Iraqi masters, including Abu Kurayb Muhammad ibn al-Ala, Abu Sa'id al-Ashajj, Harun ibn Ishaq al-Hamdani, Hisham ibn Yunus al-Lu'lu'i, Ahmad ibn Uthman ibn Hakim al-Awdi, Muhammad ibn Umar ibn al-Walid al-Kindi, and Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Zakariyya al-Awdi.
A wide circle of scholars studied under him and transmitted his narrations, which were assembled in a dedicated hadith notebook entitled Hadith al-Badr ibn al-Haytham al-Qadi. Among his prominent students were al-Daraqutni, al-Tabarani, Abu Bakr al-Abhari, Ibn Shahin, Abu Umar ibn Hayyawayh, Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Qati'i, Yusuf al-Qawwas, Umar ibn Muhammad ibn al-Zayyat, and Isa ibn Ali, the son of the vizier Ali ibn Isa. Ibn Shahin remarked that he never recorded hadith from a shaykh older than Badr ibn al-Haytham.
Standing
He was praised by hadith authorities for his reliability and integrity. Al-Daraqutni described him as trustworthy and distinguished (thiqah nabil), an evaluation reaffirmed by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi.
Death
Badr ibn al-Haytham died in Shawwal 317 AH (929 CE), with Abu Bakr ibn Shadhan specifying the date as 10 Shawwal 317 AH. While Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Imran stated that he died in 316 AH, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi deemed this an error and confirmed the year 317 AH. Another variant citing 314 AH also appears in later summaries. Following his death in Baghdad, his body was transported to Kufa, where he was buried.
Answer updated
List of Works
Hadith al-Badr ibn al-Haytham al-Qadi is a specialized hadith tract (juzʾ) that preserves and gathers narrations transmitted through the Kufan judge Badr ibn al-Haytham from senior traditionalists.