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Sulaymān ibn Yasār

أَبُو أَيُّوبَ سُلَيْمَانُ بْنُ يَسَارٍ الْهِلَالِيُّ مَوْلَاهُمُ الْمَدَنِيُّ

Savant

Sulaymān ibn Yasār is one of the seven jurists of Medina. Son of a Persian captive and freedman of the mother of the believers Maymūna, he became one of the city's greatest muftis: Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib himself sent questioners to him. A recognised specialist in questions of divorce, he was also famed for his beauty, his chastity and his fasting. أَبُو أَيُّوبَ سُلَيْمَانُ بْنُ يَسَارٍ الْهِلَالِيُّ مَوْلَاهُمُ الْمَدَنِيُّ At a glance Full name: Abū Ayyūb (or Abū ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān, or Abū ʿAbd Allāh) Sulaymān ibn Yasār al-Hilālī al-Madanī, freedman of Maymūna bint al-Ḥārith. Birth: in Medina, in 34 AH (654–655), under the caliphate of ʿUthmān. Death: in Medina, in 107 AH (725–726), at seventy-three, according to the majority. Family: brother of ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, ʿAbd al-Malik and ʿAbd Allāh, all hadith transmitters. Rank: one of the seven jurists of Medina; "the scholar of Medina and its mufti" according to adh-Dhahabī. A freedman who became an imam His father, Yasār, was a Persian captured during the conquests, who became a client of Maymūna bint al-Ḥārith al-Hilāliyya, wife of the Prophet ﷺ. According to several sources, Sulaymān himself had made a contract of emancipation by payment (mukātaba) with her; others say it was with Umm Salama. His brothers ʿAṭāʾ, ʿAbd al-Malik and ʿAbd Allāh were also scholars: ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, preacher and jurist, is one of the great transmitters of Medina. His life shows that knowledge in Medina depended neither on birth nor on origin: the son of a Persian captive sat among the seven jurists beside the grandsons of Abū Bakr, az-Zubayr and Zayd ibn Thābit. His education He narrates from Zayd ibn Thābit, Ibn ʿAbbās, Abū Hurayra, Ḥassān ibn Thābit, Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj, Ibn ʿUmar, Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, Abū Rāfiʿ the freedman of the Prophet ﷺ, and the mothers of the believers ʿĀʾisha, Umm Salama and Maymūna. He also narrates from tābiʿūn such as ʿUrwa, Kurayb and ʿAmra. Adh-Dhahabī describes him as "one of the vessels of knowledge". The mufti of Medina Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib: according to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd al-Hudhalī, when people came to consult him he would say: "Go to Sulaymān ibn Yasār; he is the most learned of those who remain today." Al-Ḥasan, son of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya: "Sulaymān ibn Yasār is, in our view, more perceptive than Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib." Mālik: "Sulaymān ibn Yasār was among the learned after Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib. He often agreed with Saʿīd, and Saʿīd would not presume to slight him." Az-Zuhrī: "He was among the scholars." Abū Zurʿa: "Reliable, eminent, devout." Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: "Trustworthy." Ibn Saʿd: "Trustworthy, learned, of high standing, a jurist, rich in hadith." Sulaymān, for his part, said of Saʿīd: "He is the last remaining of the great." The specialist in divorce Qatāda relates: "Arriving in Medina, I asked who knew the questions of divorce best. I was told: Sulaymān ibn Yasār." Divorce is one of the chapters in which the tābiʿūn of Medina most marked the four schools. Mālik reports several of Sulaymān's views in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, in the Book of Divorce, often alongside those of Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, al-Qāsim and other Medinans. Works of comparative fiqh by Ḥanafīs, Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs also report his positions among those of the Medinans. In the service of the city When ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was governor of Medina under the caliphate of al-Walīd, he entrusted Sulaymān with supervising the city's market. This office, which would become the ḥisba, consisted in checking weights and measures, prices and the honesty of transactions: a natural responsibility for a renowned jurist. He also travelled to Syria: ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir relates that when he arrived in Damascus, his father invited him and prepared a meal for him. A hadith he transmitted Sulaymān narrates from Abū Hurayra a hadith that Muslim included in his Ṣaḥīḥ. As the people dispersed, a man from Syria asked Abū Hurayra for a hadith he had heard from the Prophet ﷺ. He narrated: إِنَّ أَوَّلَ النَّاسِ يُقْضَى يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ عَلَيْهِ رَجُلٌ اسْتُشْهِدَ "The first of people to be judged on the Day of Resurrection is a man who died as a martyr." The hadith then describes a scholar who learned and taught the Qur'an and a rich man who spent his wealth: all three had acted so that people would call them brave, learned or generous, and they are cast into the Fire. It is one of the basic texts on sincerity of intention (ikhlāṣ). Sulaymān's chastity Sulaymān was, according to Muṣʿab ibn ʿUthmān, "the most handsome of men". A woman once entered his house and tried to seduce him. He refused. She threatened him: "Then I will disgrace you." He went out and left her alone in his house, fleeing like the prophet Yūsuf. He later related that he saw Yūsuf in a dream and asked him: "Are you Yūsuf?" — "Yes, I am Yūsuf, who was tempted, and you are Sulaymān, who was not." His devotion Abū az-Zinād reports that Sulaymān fasted continuously, while his brother ʿAṭāʾ fasted…