General · EdgepediaOctober 10, 20264 min read

Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Azra'i

Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Azra'i (إسحاق بن إبراهيم بن هاشم الأذرعي) was a fourth-century AH hadith transmitter of Damascus, titled by al-Dhahabi "Imam, Muhaddith, Rabbani, Qudwa" and identified as Abu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Hashim al-Nahdi al-Azra'i, shaykh of Damascus.¹ He heard hadith in Egypt, Homs, and Damascus, transmitted from al-Nasa'i and Abu Zur'a al-Nasri among others, and died in the 340s AH.²

Key fact	Detail
Identity	Abu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Hashim al-Nahdi al-Azra'i, shaykh of Damascus; entry 271 of the nineteenth tabaqa in al-Dhahabi's Siyar¹
Nisba	Al-Azra'i refers to the Azra'at of Syria (أذرعات الشام); the reading "al-Awza'i" in al-Ibar is noted as a corruption¹
Teachers	Yahya ibn Ayyub, Miqdam ibn Dawud, Abu Yazid al-Qaratisi, and al-Nasa'i in Egypt; Musa ibn Isa ibn al-Mundhir in Homs; Abu Zur'a al-Nasri in Damascus²
Students	Ibn Jumay', Ibn Mandah, Tammam al-Razi, Ibn Abi Kamil, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Umar ibn Nasr²
Jarh wa ta'dil	4 recorded statements, all positive: thiqah; "imam, muhaddith, qudwa"; "thiqah, abid, muhaddith 'arif"³
Death	342 AH (Sha'ban, al-Risala edition) or 344 AH (yawm al-nahr, other texts), at over ninety years, in Damascus¹^•³
Namesake	Not to be confused with Ishaq ibn Ibrahim Ibn Rahawayh (ibn Makhlad, of Nishapur, d. 238 AH)⁴

Life, travels and teachers

Al-Dhahabi's notice records his hearing of hadith in three locales. In Egypt he heard from Yahya ibn Ayyub, Miqdam ibn Dawud, Abu Yazid al-Qaratisi, and Ahmad ibn Shu'ayb al-Nasa'i; in Homs from Musa ibn Isa ibn al-Mundhir; and in Damascus from Abu Zur'a al-Nasri.² The Mawsuat al-Rawi database adds Abd Allah ibn Ja'far al-Rafi'i to the teacher list.³

Those who narrated from him include Ibn Jumay', Ibn Mandah, Tammam al-Razi, Abu Abd Allah ibn Abi Kamil, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Umar ibn Nasr.² A structured biographical database gives his places of residence as Homs, Damascus, and Egypt, with his birth date and place unknown.⁵

Standing in jarh wa ta'dil

The recorded verdicts are uniformly positive. The Mawsuat al-Rawi database counts four statements of jarh wa ta'dil on al-Azra'i: a grade of thiqah; the description "imam, muhaddith, qudwa"; and "thiqah, abid, and muhaddith 'arif" (trustworthy, a worshipper, and a knowing hadith scholar).³ Abu al-Husayn al-Razi described him as "among the leading people of Damascus, its worshippers and its scholars".² No recorded criticism appears in these sources.

A piety report is transmitted from Abd al-Qahir ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Sa'igh: al-Azra'i prayed for blindness, became blind and struggled with purity, then prayed for its return and his sight was restored.²

Narrations and works

The database records four appearances of al-Azra'i in isnads, with the ending category "mawquf" listed.³ One recorded chain runs: al-Azra'i from Muhammad ibn Ali from Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari from Zuhayr ibn Abbad from Mansur ibn Ammar.³

Disambiguation: not Ibn Rahawayh

The famous namesake is Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Makhlad ibn Ibrahim ibn Matr, Abu Ya'qub al-Hanzali, known as Ibn Rahawayh al-Marwazi, resident of Nishapur, whom Ibn Hajar calls "one of the imams" who traveled the lands.⁴ The two differ in father (Hashim versus Makhlad), in locale (Damascus versus Nishapur), and in era: Ibn Rahawayh died in 238 or 237 AH, roughly a century before al-Azra'i's death in the 340s AH.⁴ Ibn Rahawayh's profile was also far larger; Abu Hatim's testimony, quoted in the Tahdhib, concerns his dictating his Tafsir from memory.⁴

By the numbers

The database record is compact: 4 statements of jarh wa ta'dil, all positive; 4 appearances in isnads, classified under the mawquf category; three residence locales (Homs, Damascus, Egypt); and a reported age at death of over ninety years.³^•⁵

References

Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026