Sufyan Ats-Tsauri: Amirul Mukminin in Hadith
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In the third generation of this people - tabi'ut tabi'in, students of the friends' students - there stood a scholar whom hadith experts called Amirul Mukminin fil Hadith, leader of believers in the science of hadith: Sufyan bin Sa'id Ats-Tsauri, born in Kufa in 97 Hijriah. Kufa at that time was an ocean of knowledge, and Sufyan drank from it from a young age. His memorization was amazing โ he said he had never memorized something and then forgotten it. His contemporary scholars, including Imam Malik in Medina, recognized his superiority. He narrated thousands of hadiths with sanads which became the backbone of later hadith books, and he was also an imam in jurisprudence with its own school of thought that lasted several centuries. However, Sufyan's greatness does not stop with the power of memorization. What makes his name good is his attitude towards the world and power. He lived in asceticism from the profits of his own small trade, refused the ruler's gifts, and avoided the palace doors as if he were avoiding fire. When the caliph wanted to appoint him as hakim, he refused and chose to move around the city in hiding for years until his death in Basrah in 161 Hijriah. For him, approaching power risks mortgaging the truth - and a paid tongue finds it difficult to tell the truth. His sentences are gems of advice. "Zuhud towards the world is not wearing rough clothes and eating hard food, but short of wishful thinking." "There is nothing I fight harder than my own intentions, because they always go back and forth." He also reminded students of knowledge that knowledge is studied to fear Allah - otherwise, it only adds to the burden of proof. From Sufyan Ats-Tsauri we learn a rare balance: the peak of expertise and the peak of prudence in one soul. The higher the knowledge, the humbler the heart; The bigger his name, the further he is from doors that could damage his sincerity. Knowledge without color' is only intelligence; and Sufyan shows what it would be like if the two were together.