The Biography of Muslim Ibn Abi Maryam and the Issue of Dreading from Elevating the Hadith

Abstract

This research deals with the biography of Muslim Ibn Abi Maryam and the issue of dreading from elevating the hadith. His biography was presented including his name and lineage, the names of his teachers and pupils, and the scholars’ sayings, including the saying of Al-Imam Maliki.  It has been found from the study that all of his teachers are Medinans. What he narrated from the hadith is not proportional with the number of his teachers, as his hadith via them is supposed to be more than what we have found. It has been shown by the researchers that Muslim’s dreading from elevating the hadith led him to shorten the Isnad and not to elevate the Marfou’ hadith، which in its turn forced his students to narrate the  accounts that he elevated and leave the non-elevated ones. The research adopted the inductive method by collecting the sayings of scholars about Muslim Ibn Abi Maryam, collecting his narrations, and tracking what serves the title of the research, the analytical method by analyzing what was collected from the scientific material, and extracting the issues that serve the topic and clarify its aspects and the critical method by criticizing the hadiths narrated by Muslim Ibn Abi Maryam. The research found that the contradiction between elevating or not elevating the hadith in the practice of Ibn Maryam is not a kind of (i'llah) (a hidden deceit), as he practiced that in purpose, i.e. deliberately not accidentally or mistakenly.