# Abu Mati' al-Dabbi
**Abu Mati' al-Dabbi** (أبو مطيع محمد بن عبد الواحد بن عبد العزيز الضبي) was a hadith transmitter of fifth-century AH (eleventh-century CE) Baghdad, remembered in the biographical dictionaries under the titles al-Shaykh, al-Muhaddith (hadith scholar), al-Mu'ammar (the long-lived), and musnid waqtih, the master-transmitter of his time[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270). His full genealogy is given by al-Dhahabi as Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad ibn Zakariyya al-Dabbi[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872). The biographical entry also records the nisba al-Madini with the byname al-Misri[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Identity | Abu Mati' Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad ibn Zakariyya al-Dabbi, styled al-Shaykh, al-Muhaddith, al-Mu'ammar, musnid waqtih[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872) |
| Teachers | Abu Bakr ibn Mardawayh, Abu Sa'id Muhammad ibn Ali al-Naqqash, Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Aqil al-Bawardi, Abu Nasr al-Zaynabi, and others; he alone transmitted from many of them[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270) • [2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872) |
| Students | Isma'il ibn Muhammad al-Hafiz, Muhammad ibn Ma'mar al-Lunbani, Abu Hanifa al-Khatibi, Umar ibn Abi Sa'd, Abu Tahir al-Silafi, and Abu al-Fath al-Kharqi[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270) |
| Al-Sam'ani's verdict | "Righteous, long-lived, a man of letters, virtuous"; died in 497 AH, aged 90–100[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270) |
| Al-Dhahabi's account | Imprisoned by the caliph al-Mustazhir, property seized by the vizier of the sultanate, brought out dead in Shawwal of 493 AH; lived fifty-nine years[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872) |
| Sample chain | Abu Mati' narrated from Ahmad ibn Musa al-Hafiz, ultimately from Urwa al-Bariqi, of the Prophet's hadith "Horses are tied by their forelocks to good"[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270) |
| Poetry | Al-Dhahabi notes he had good verse (نظم جيد)[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872) |
## Teachers and students
The two classical entries agree on the shape of his career as a listener and transmitter. He heard hadith from the hadith master [Abu Bakr](https://www.edgepedia.org/abu-bakr) ibn Mardawayh, from Abu Sa'id Muhammad ibn Ali al-Naqqash, from Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Aqil al-Bawardi, and from a group of others, and the entry records that he alone transmitted (تفرد بالرواية) from many of his teachers[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270). Al-Dhahabi adds Abu Nasr al-Zaynabi among those he narrated from[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872).
His students carried his material onward. The entry names Isma'il ibn Muhammad al-Hafiz, Muhammad ibn Ma'mar al-Lunbani, Abu Hanifa Muhammad ibn Ubayd Allah al-Khatibi, Umar ibn Abi Sa'd, Abu Tahir al-Silafi, and Abu al-Fath Abd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Kharqi as those who transmitted from him[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270). A recorded chain shows the working of his musnad: Abu Mati' narrated from Ahmad ibn Musa al-Hafiz, ultimately from Husayn via Amir via Urwa al-Bariqi, of the Prophet's saying that horses are tied by their forelocks to good until the Day of Resurrection[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270).
## Assessment by hadith critics
**Al-Sam'ani's praise.** Abd al-Karim al-Sam'ani described him as صالحاً معمراً أديباً فاضلاً, righteous, long-lived, a man of letters, and virtuous, and gave his death as 497 AH, with the compiler of the entry noting that he was aged 90–100[1](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270).
**Al-Dhahabi's account of the end.** [Al-Dhahabi](https://www.edgepedia.org/al-dhahabi) records a different and darker final chapter: in his last years the caliph al-Mustazhir imprisoned him and the vizier of the sultanate seized his property, and he was brought out dead in Shawwal of a year given in this passage as 493 AH[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872). In the calamity (النكبة), al-Dhahabi writes, his spirit was humbled, he turned in repentance to God, and the last thing heard from him was the shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith[2](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872).
## The Baghdad milieu
Abu Mati's career unfolded in the [Baghdad](https://www.edgepedia.org/baghdad) of the late fifth century AH, when the city's Shafi'i and hadith establishment was organized around its great scholars and the Nizamiyya madrasa, founded in 459/1066-67. The Shafi'i leadership of the city had passed from Abu Hamed Esfarayini to Abu'l-Tayyeb Tabari, qadi of Baghdad from 436/1044-45, and then to Tabari's students Abu Eshaq Shirazi and Abu Nasr ibn al-Sabbagh during the madrasa's establishment[3](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abul-tayyeb-tabari/).
Parallel lines of [Sahih al-Bukhari](https://www.edgepedia.org/sahih-al-bukhari) transmission ran through the same city and generation. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (392-463 AH), the hadith authority of his time in Baghdad, took the Sahih from Karima bint Ahmad al-Marwaziyya (d. 463 AH), a centenarian student of al-Kushmihani, in five days during his pilgrimage at age fifty-two[4](https://livingislam.org/o/khtb_e.html). Abu Dharr al-Harawi, who settled in Mecca and taught hadith there for about a third of a century until his death in 434 AH, left a recension of the Sahih whose students spread it from Khurasan and Iraq to al-Andalus and North Africa; after his death his son Abu Maktum Isa al-Harawi (d. 497 AH) carried the teaching in the Eastern lands while [Ibn Manzur](https://www.edgepedia.org/ibn-manzur) al-Ishbili (d. 459 AH), Abu al-Walid [al-Baji](https://www.edgepedia.org/al-baji) (d. 474 AH), and Abu al-Abbas al-Udhri (d. 478 AH) transmitted it in the West[5](https://hadithnotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/From-Khurasan-Final-1.pdf). The teaching culture continued after Abu Mati's generation: the Baghdad hadith scholar Enmati (d. 11 Muharrem 538 / 26 July 1143) copied and taught massive works including al-Khatib's Tarikh Baghdad, and al-Sam'ani and other scholars consulted him on narrator criticism (jarh and ta'dil)[6](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/enmati).
## References
1. [أرشيف الإسلام - الأعلام | أبو مطيع محمد بن عبد الواحد بن عبد العزيز الضبي](https://www.islamarchive.cc/a3lam/159270)
2. [سير أعلام النبلاء ج19 - ترجمة أبو مطيع محمد بن عبد الواحد بن عبد العزيز الضبي، al-Dhahabi](https://ftp.shamela.ws/book/10906/11872)
3. [ABU'L-TAYYEB TABARI, Encyclopaedia Iranica](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abul-tayyeb-tabari/)
4. [Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, biographical notice, Living Islam](https://livingislam.org/o/khtb_e.html)
5. [From Khurasan to al-Andalus (study of Abu Dharr al-Harawi's recension of Sahih al-Bukhari), Hadith Notes](https://hadithnotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/From-Khurasan-Final-1.pdf)
6. [ENMÂTÎ, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/enmati)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Philosophy, religion, and mythology › Religion and spirituality › Religious biographies › Jewish, Islamic, and Dharmic religious leaders › Islamic religious leaders and scholars › Sunni imams and classical Islamic scholars › Hadith scholars and traditionists › Baghdad and Iraqi traditionists of the Abbasid era › Baghdadi traditionists of the later Abbasid era*
*Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026*
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