Qassim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr
May Allah Be Well Pleased With Him
"So long as you have not contemplated the Creator,
you belong to created beings;
but when you have contemplated Him,
created beings belong to you."
Ibn `Ata'Allah, Hikam.
He was one of the seven most famous jurists in Madinat al-Munawwara. It was through these seven great Imams that hadith, fiqh (jurisprudence) and tafsir (exegesis) of the Qur'an were disseminated to the people. His mother was the daughter of the last king of Persia, Yazdagir. His grandfather was the first khalif, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. He met some of the Tabi`in, such as Salim bin `Abdullah ibn `Umar .
He was a pious imam and was very knowledgeable in hadith narration. Abu Zannad said, "I never saw anyone better than him in following the Sunnah of the Prophet . In our time no one is considered perfect until he is perfect in following the Sunnah of the Prophet . And Qassim is one of the perfected men."
Abdur Rahman ibn Abi Zannad said that his father said, "I didn't see anyone who knew the Sunnah better than al-Qassim did."
Abu Nu`aym said of him in his book Hilyat al-Awliya: "He was able to extract the deepest juristic rulings and he was supreme in manners and ethics."
Imam Malik narrated that `Umar bin `Abdul Aziz said, "If it was in my hands, I would have made al-Qassim the khalif in my time."
Sufyan said, "Some people came to al-Qassim with sadaqa (a donation) which he distributed. After he distributed it he went to pray. While he was praying the people began to speak negatively about him. His son said to them, 'You are speaking behind the back of a man who distributed your sadaqa and didn't take one dirham from it for himself.' Quickly his father scolded him saying, 'Don't speak, but keep quiet.' He wanted to teach his son not to defend him, as his only desire was to please Allah and he had no concern for the opinion of people.
Yahya bin Sayyid said, "We never found, in our time in Madinah, anyone better than al-Qassim." Ayyub as-Saqityani said, "I haven't seen anyone better than Imam Qassim. He left 100,000 dinars behind for the poor when he passed away, and it was all from his lawful (halal) earnings."
He died in a place between Makkah and Madinah called al-Qudayd in the year 108 (or 109) H. while he was on pilgrimage. He was seventy years old at the time of his passing.
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