Ibn Rafi al-Salami
- Died
- 774 AH
- Born in
- Cairo
Ibn Rafi al-Salami (704–774 AH / 1305–1372 CE) was a Shafi'i hadith scholar, biographer, and historian based in Damascus, known for his biographical chronicle al-Wafayat.
Lineage and Early Life
His full name was Muhammad ibn Rafi' ibn Abi Muhammad Hijras ibn Muhammad ibn Shafi' al-Salami al-Sumaydi, bearing the kunya Abu al-Ma'ali and the honorific Taqi al-Din. He was of Hauran ancestry and was born in Cairo in 704 AH, though another report places his birth in 709 AH. His father relocated him to Damascus in 714 AH. Following his father's death, he traveled frequently between Egypt and the Levant, also studying in the Hijaz, before taking up permanent residence in Damascus in 739 AH.
Education, Career, and Standing
He studied hadith under numerous scholars, including Taqi al-Din ibn al-Sa'igh and Ibn al-Shahnah, ultimately compiling a personal four-volume repertory (mu'jam) recording transmissions from more than a thousand shaykhs. Among those who transmitted from him were Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi and Ibn al-Jazari. In Damascus, he assumed teaching chairs of hadith (mashyakhah) at institutions such as Dar al-Hadith al-Nuriyyah and Dar al-Hadith al-Fadiliyyah.
Biographers characterized him as a trustworthy, precise hadith master (hafiz) and an expert in distinguishing narrator identities and orthography. He was noted for his personal piety, unpretentious living, and strict scrupulousness in ritual purity. In historical writing, he composed al-Wafayat as a chronological continuation of al-Birzali's chronicle from 737 AH to 773 AH, as well as a supplement to Ibn al-Najjar's biographical history of Baghdad.
Death
Ibn Rafi al-Salami died in Damascus on Tuesday, 18 Jumada al-Ula 774 AH, at the age of seventy, and was buried following a widely attended funeral.
Answer updated
List of Works
Mashayikhat al-Bayani is a hadith repertory compiled to record the shaykhs and transmitted narrations of the hadith transmitter Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Bayani, also known as Ibn Imam al-Sakhrah.
al-Wafayat (The Necrologies) is a biographical chronicle documenting the deaths of scholars, traditionists, and notables from 737 AH to 773 AH. Organized chronologically by year, it serves as a continuation to the chronicle al-Muqtafi.