Ibn Majah Biography

Imam Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Yazid ibn Majah al-Rab'i al-Qazwini was a ninth-century Persian hadith scholar best known for compiling Sunan Ibn Majah, one of the six canonical Sunni hadith collections (Kutub al-Sittah). Born in Qazwin — a major center of Islamic learning in northwestern Persia — in 209 AH / 824 CE, he came from a family of mawla origin (his name 'Majah' is sometimes rendered as a maternal grandfather's name).

Ibn Majah began his hadith studies in his teens and undertook the rihla — the scholarly journey in pursuit of hadith — that took him through Khorasan, Iraq, the Hijaz, Egypt, Syria, and Rayy. He studied with major traditionists of his era including Ali ibn Muhammad al-Tanafisi, Mus'ab al-Zubayri, Jubarah ibn al-Mughallis, and Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah. His Sunan, organized around the topics of fiqh, contains roughly 4,000 hadith — including some forty that he uniquely transmits — and is distinguished by its clear arrangement, though later critics noted that it includes a number of weak narrations alongside its rigorous core.

Ibn Majah also authored a Tafsir al-Qur'an and a Tarikh ('History') of the scholars and transmitters of his region, neither of which survives in complete form. He died in Qazwin in 273 AH / 887 CE. Sunan Ibn Majah was the last of the six canonical collections to be widely accepted as part of the Kutub al-Sittah, and remains a standard reference in Sunni hadith scholarship.