Early life and career Muhammad ibn Muslim az-Zuhri was born in the city of Medina. His father
Muslim was a supporter of the
Zubayrids during the
Second Fitna, while his great-grandfather
Abd Allah fought against
Muhammad at the
Battle of Uhud before converting to Islam. Despite hailing from the
Banu Zuhrah — a clan of
Quraysh — Zuhri's early life was characterised by poverty, and he served as the breadwinner for his family. As a youth, Zuhri enjoyed studying poetry and
genealogy, and possessed an excellent memory which enabled him in this pursuit. He consumed
honey syrup in a bid to sharpen it further, and wrote voluminous notes on slates and parchment to aid with memory recall. Dedicating himself to the study of hadith and
maghazi narrations in his twenties, he studied under the Medinese scholars
Said ibn al-Musayyib,
Urwah ibn Zubayr,
Ubayd-Allah ibn Abd-Allah and Abu Salamah, the son of
Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf. He referred to them as four "oceans of knowledge". He may have been the first to combine multiple
maghazi reports into one to produce a single, coherent narrative with collective
chains of narration - a technique later used by Ishaq and
Al-Waqidi.
Encounter with Abd al-Malik In the account of the 9th-century
Shia historian
Ya'qubi, a teenage Zuhri was taken to caliph
Abd al-Malik () while visiting
Damascus in . The caliph sought to prevent the Syrians from performing the
Hajj in
Mecca, which was controlled by the Zubayrids. Adducing a hadith from Zuhri that permitted pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, Abd al-Malik ordered the construction of the
Dome of the Rock to serve as a site for a substitute pilgrimage.
Ignác Goldziher states that Zuhri fabricated the hadith at the behest of the caliph. However, the historicity of the encounter has been disputed by
Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami,
Nabia Abbott and
Harald Motzki, as Zuhri was then a young and unknown figure, others also transmitted the hadith and his source Said ibn al-Musayyib would not consent to his name being used in a forgery.
Patronage by the Umayyads As his stature as a scholar grew, Zuhri came to the attention of the Umayyads. He enjoyed the patronage of Abd al-Malik after being introduced to him in and of his successor
al-Walid I (). Zuhri's study circle was praised by the deeply religious
Umar II (), who was engaged in scholarly pursuits in Medina. Upon his accession, he ordered prominent traditionists to commit their hadith to writing as part of his vision to codify the
sunnah. Zuhri was tasked with compiling their manuscripts into books, copies of which were sent to cities throughout the caliphate. During the reign of
Yazid II (), Zuhri accepted an offer of
judgeship from the caliph. He also served the Umayyads as a tax collector and as a member of the
shurta.
Hisham () employed Zuhri as a tutor for his sons, permitting him to live at the court in
Resafa. There, Hisham compelled Zuhri to write down hadith for the young Umayyad princes - a move that troubled the scholar, who was opposed to the practice. He later complained about the coercion, adding "Now that the rulers have written it [hadith], I am ashamed I do not write it for anyone else but them." Zuhri remained at Resafa for the next two decades, where he continued to teach new students and hold lectures in which he transmitted hadith. == Students ==