al-Hakim an-Naysaburi

Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Hakim an-Naysaburi (321-405 AH / 933-1014 CE) was a major hadith scholar of Nishapur and the author of al-Mustadrak ala as-Sahihayn, one of the most important hadith compilations outside the six canonical collections. Born in Nishapur to a scholarly family, he began studying hadith as a child and traveled widely across the Muslim world, learning from nearly two thousand scholars in Iraq, the Hejaz, and Transoxiana.

Al-Mustadrak is designed as a supplement to the Sahihs of al-Bukhari and Muslim, collecting hadith that al-Hakim believed met the authentication criteria of one or both compilers but were not included in their collections. The work contains approximately 8,800 narrations. While later scholars, notably adh-Dhahabi in his Talkhis al-Mustadrak, criticized al-Hakim for being too lenient in his authentication of some narrations, the Mustadrak remains an invaluable source of hadith that fills gaps in the canonical collections.

Al-Hakim also authored Marifat Ulum al-Hadith (Knowledge of the Hadith Sciences), one of the earliest systematic works on hadith methodology, and Tarikh Naysabur, a history of Nishapur that served as a model for regional biographical dictionaries. He served as a judge and was the leading religious authority in Nishapur for decades. He died in his hometown in 405 AH (1014 CE). His contributions to hadith collection and methodology continue to be studied and debated by scholars.