The Madīnan School: Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān
He is Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf az-Zuhrī al-Qurashī (raḥimahullāh), one of the Seven Fuqahāʾ of Madīnah. His given name is disputed—some said ʿAbdullāh, others Ismāʿīl—yet he is universally known by his kunyah. Born in Madīnah around the year 22 AH. His father was ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, one of the ten promised Paradise and among the earliest of the Muhājirūn; his mother was Tumāḍir bint al-Aṣbagh al-Kalbiyyah. He was suckled by Umm Kulthūm bint Abī Bakr, making ʿĀʾishah his maternal aunt through nursing.
He sought knowledge with great eagerness from the senior Companions while they were still alive. He narrated from ʿĀʾishah, Umm Salamah, Abū Hurayrah, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn ʿUmar, Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī, Usāmah ibn Zayd, and many others. Because his father died while he was still young, his direct narrations from him are few. He once remarked that had he shown greater gentleness toward Ibn ʿAbbās he would have extracted far more knowledge from him. He became a leading authority in ḥadīth and fiqh in Madīnah and served as qāḍī of the city under Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ from approximately 48 AH until 54 AH.
His major students included Muḥammad ibn Shihāb az-Zuhrī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī, ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr, and others who transmitted the knowledge of Madīnah. Az-Zuhrī counted him among four “oceans” of knowledge from Quraysh: Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr, Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, and ʿUbaydullāh ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUtbah. Imām Mālik regarded him as one of the men of knowledge whose name was his kunyah. Adh-Dhahabī described him as an avid seeker of knowledge, a faqīh, a mujtahid of high standing, and a ḥujjah. Shuʿbah reported from Abū Isḥāq that Abū Salamah in his time was better than Ibn ʿUmar had been in his.
He was known for his simplicity and practical application of the Sunnah. When he married off one of his daughters he accepted only a mudd of dates as mahr, deliberately opposing the excesses that had begun to appear in society. He dyed his hair black and remained actively engaged in teaching and judging until late in life. Though detailed reports of his personal night prayers and fasting are fewer than those of some of his contemporaries, his lifelong dedication to seeking, preserving, and transmitting knowledge was itself a form of sustained ʿibādah, and the scholars counted him among the most reliable and careful of the Madīnan transmitters.
His narrations and fatāwā form part of the foundation upon which the Madīnan school was built. He died in Madīnah in the year 94 AH (the Year of the Fuqahāʾ) at approximately seventy-two years of age, during the caliphate of al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
(Named by an-Nasāʾī among the Tābiʿīn of the fuqahāʾ of Madīnah, after ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr.)
