General · EdgepediaOctober 10, 20266 min read

Makki ibn Ibrahim

Makki ibn Ibrahim (مكي بن إبراهيم بن بشير بن فرقد التميمي), in full Makki ibn Ibrahim ibn Bashir ibn Farqad al-Tamimi al-Hanzali, kunya Abu al-Sakan, was a Sunni hadith transmitter of Balkh in Khurasan who died in 214 or 215 AH. Classical biographers title him Imam, Hafiz, truthful, and musnid Khurasan, the great chain-carrier of hadith in his region¹^•². He is one of the teachers from whom al-Bukhari narrated directly in his Sahih, and eleven of al-Bukhari's twenty-two three-narrator chains (thulathiyyat) pass through him³. He appears as a narrator in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Identity	Makki ibn Ibrahim ibn Bashir ibn Farqad al-Tamimi al-Hanzali al-Balkhi, Abu al-Sakan; titled Imam, Hafiz, musnid of Khurasan¹
Dates	Born 126 AH; died 214 AH per Abu Hatim and al-Bukhari, 215 AH per Ibn Sa'd and others, in Balkh¹^•⁵
Place in the Sahih	Al-Bukhari narrated from him without intermediary in the prayer and sales chapters; the first chain in the chapter "whoever answers fatwas" of the Sahih runs through him³
Reliability	Ahmad ibn Hanbal: thiqa; Abu Hatim: mahalluhu al-sidq; al-Daraqutni: thiqa ma'mun; Ibn Hajar: thiqa thabit; al-Dhahabi: al-Hafiz¹^•⁵
Teachers	Malik ibn Anas, Ibn Jurayj, Abu Hanifa, Sufyan al-Thawri, Hisham ibn Hassan, Yazid ibn Abi Ubayd, and narrated from eleven Successors (Tabi'un), nine identified by al-Dhahabi¹^•²
Output	268 narrated hadith in one modern database; 31 hadiths in Sahih al-Bukhari per one count, 35 per Ikmal Tahdhib⁴^•⁷^•⁵

Life and origins

The genealogy is given as Makki ibn Ibrahim ibn Bashir ibn Farqad; his nisbas are al-Tamimi (tribal), al-Hanzali (clan), and al-Balkhi or al-Burjumi (place). Ibn al-Athir records that most hadith scholars vocalized Burjumi with a fatha on the first letter, though some read it with a damma³. When Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ja'far al-Balkhi asked his birth year, Makki answered 126 AH¹.

A lifetime of pilgrimage. Abd al-Samad ibn Fadl reported Makki's own account: he performed sixty hajjs, married sixty women, spent ten years living near the Kaaba, and wrote hadith from seventeen Successors¹. A second report, from Umar ibn Mudrik, has him crossing the desert from Balkh fifty times as a pilgrim and paying more than 1,200 dinars in rent for houses in Mecca; the compiler of that entry notes the report is weak (wahin)¹.

His connection to the Iraqi centers of hadith came early. He reported that he entered Kufa twice while al-A'mash and Isma'il ibn Abi Khalid were alive, first attending al-A'mash's circle at age eleven, taking a seat for his brother and not yet applying himself to hadith⁶. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab al-Farra described him as "the righteous man of Nishapur"².

Teachers and students

His teachers span the centers of second- and early third-century hadith. Al-Mizzi's Tahdhib al-Kamal lists, among others, Hashim ibn Hashim ibn Utba, Hisham ibn Hassan, Hisham al-Dastuwa'i, Yahya ibn Shabla, and Yazid ibn Abi Ubayd, mawla of Salama ibn al-Akwa'⁸. Al-Dhahabi's Siyar adds Abu Hanifa, Ayyan ibn Nabl, Dawud ibn Yazid al-Awdi, Fa'id Abu al-Warqa, Fitr ibn Khalifa, Uthman ibn al-Aswad, and Malik ibn Anas, and records that Makki narrated from eleven Successors, nine of whom al-Dhahabi could identify². The Sunnah.com narrator profile lists Ibn Jurayj al-Makki, Sufyan al-Thawri, Malik ibn Anas, Hammad ibn Salama, and Sharik ibn Abd Allah al-Qadi among his sources⁴.

A digital transmitter database counts 57 teachers and 64 students for him⁹.

His hadith in the major collections

Direct link to al-Bukhari. Al-Bukhari narrated from Makki without an intermediary in the chapters on prayer and sales, and most of al-Bukhari's thulathiyyat, chains with only three narrators between the compiler and the Prophet, are transmitted through him³. The first chain al-Bukhari cites in the chapter "whoever answers fatwas" of the Book of Knowledge runs through Makki³. Al-Zirikli's al-A'lam likewise records that al-Bukhari uniquely relied on him (tafarrada bihi) in the prayer and sales chapters⁶.

Sample hadith cited to him include Sahih al-Bukhari 109 ("Do not lie against me, for whoever lies against me will enter the Fire"), 1557, 2160, 1167, and 1647 (the circumambulation at the Farewell Pilgrimage)⁴. Another database places him in 31 hadiths of the Sahih, including numbers 298 (menstrual periods), 497 (prayer), 762 (call to prayer), and 2007 (fasting), with reports from Abu Hurayra, Salama, and Umm Salama⁷. Sample chains show him transmitting from Yazid ibn Abi Ubayd from Salama, and from Hanzala ibn Abi Sufyan from Salim from Abu Hurayra⁹.

Evaluation in rijal criticism

The classical verdicts are consistently positive. Ahmad ibn Hanbal said thiqa (trustworthy); Abu Hatim said mahalluhu al-sidq (his place is truthfulness); al-Ijli said thiqa; al-Nasa'i said "there is no harm in him"; al-Daraqutni said thiqa, ma'mun (trustworthy, reliable)¹. Ibn Sa'd described him as thiqa and thabit in hadith, and the compiler of his entry notes the judgment that al-Bukhari met no one in Khurasan greater than him¹. Ibn Hajar graded him thiqa thabit and al-Dhahabi called him al-Hafiz⁵.

One documented dispute. Al-Khalili called him thiqa by consensus but recorded an error in Makki's narration of the funeral prayer over al-Najashi, which he gave via Malik from Nafi' from Ibn Umar; the correct chain, per al-Khalili, is Malik from al-Zuhri from Sa'id from Abu Hurayra⁵. Ibn Hibban reports that Yahya ibn Ma'in, asked about Makki's version of this hadith, answered "this is false, and he lied" (batal wa-kadhab); al-Khatib al-Baghdadi records that Makki transmitted the report in al-Rayy but refused to repeat it after returning from hajj⁵. A separate report preserves Ibn Ma'in being questioned, from his own handwritten book, about a hadith narrated by Makki from Malik from Nafi', showing that the leading critic of the day examined Makki's chains directly¹⁰.

By the numbers

The quantitative picture varies by database. Sunnah.com records 268 narrated hadith for him overall⁴; one Sahih al-Bukhari database counts 31 hadiths from him in that collection⁷, while Ikmal Tahdhib, cited in the Shamela entry, gives 35⁵. Khalifa ibn Khayyat placed him in the fifth tabaqa (generation-cohort) of the people of Khurasan⁴. The classical entry describes him as not very prolific (laysa bi-l-mukthir jiddan) in narration¹, which fits a profile of moderate output carrying exceptional chain importance: his value lies in the thulathiyyat and the opening chains of the Sahih rather than in volume.

References

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