The Madīnan School: Al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr
He is Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq at-Taymī al-Qurashī (raḥimahullāh), one of the Seven Fuqahāʾ of Madīnah. Born in Madīnah around the year 35 or 36 AH, during the Khilāfah of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. His father was Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr, the son of Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq. His mother was an umm walad. When his father was killed in Egypt while Qāsim was still a small child (around seven years of age), he was taken into the household of his paternal aunt, Umm al-Muʾminīn ʿĀʾishah (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhā). There he was raised, educated, and formed under her direct care and teaching.
He became one of the most knowledgeable of the people regarding the ḥadīth and practice of ʿĀʾishah, alongside ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr and ʿAmrah bint ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān. He also narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn ʿUmar, Abū Hurayrah, and others. He rose to become one of the foremost authorities of Madīnah in fiqh and the Sunnah. Abū az-Zinād said: “I never saw anyone more knowledgeable of the Sunnah than al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad.” Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī said: “We never met anyone in Madīnah whom we preferred over al-Qāsim.” Ayyūb as-Sakhtiyānī said: “I never saw a man better than him.” Imām Mālik counted him among the fuqahāʾ of this Ummah.
He was known for his deep piety, scrupulousness, and restraint in speech. Among his reported statements is: “That a man should live as an ignorant person after knowing the right of Allāh upon him is better for him than that he should speak of that which he does not know.” He disliked that anyone should claim knowledge beyond what he truly possessed, and he was careful never to speak without clear knowledge.
His major students included his son ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, Muḥammad ibn Shihāb az-Zuhrī, and others who transmitted the knowledge of Madīnah. Toward the end of his life he lost his eyesight. He set out for Ḥajj or ʿUmrah and died at Qudayd, between Makkah and Madīnah, in the year 106 or 107 AH, at approximately seventy-two years of age. Before his death he instructed his son: “Shroud me in the clothes in which I used to pray — my shirt, my izār, and my ridāʾ — just as Abū Bakr was shrouded. Level the earth over my grave, and go to your family. Beware of standing over my grave and saying, ‘He was this and he was that.’”
His transmissions from ʿĀʾishah, his deep understanding of the Sunnah, and his place among the Seven Fuqahāʾ form a central pillar of the Madīnan school and the Knowledge of Fiqh generally.
May Allāh unite us with him and the foremost of the Sālihīn in the Firdaws, āmīn
(Named by an-Nasāʾī among the Tābiʿīn of the fuqahāʾ of Madīnah, after Khārijah ibn Zayd ibn Thābit.)
