Dear Imam Muhammad ibn Sawrah ibn Musa ibn al-Dhahhak al-Tirmidhi
It is my great pleasure to address you in a letter. May Allah ﷻ elevate your rank in the hereafter. I am currently taking a course on traditional Muslim scholars through the Ribaat Academic Institute. We have learned about so many amazing scholars, but your name and your story stayed in my mind. This is mostly because we share the same last name. It is said that one of your descendants left Tirmidh to give dawah in India. In South Asia, the dha (ذ) sound became transformed to za (ز), hence the last name Tirmizi among those who came after him.
In class, I had the pleasure of learning about your amazing qualities and important work. I am always impressed by the strong memory of great scholars. I appreciated hearing about your travels to Mecca where you thought you had two parts of a hadith written down, but didn’t, and read from memory without any mistakes. With regards to your most famous work: Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, we learned what made it unique among hadith collections. I thought it was interesting that you included almost exclusively hadiths that some of the jurists have acted upon. It shows that the collection of hadith was practical for implementation in Islamic society at the time. We also learned that Jami’ al-Tirmidhi was unique in how it mentioned the names of other Companions who narrated similar hadiths and it revealed conflicting hadiths on particular issues. It carefully detailed the authenticity or weakness of hadiths and how you came to those conclusions. Your work helped set the foundations for hadith science and was an invaluable resource for students and scholars for generations to come.
For the past few years, I have wanted to create a short book, a hadith compilation, intertwined with fictional short stories. I took another course with Ribaat on the 40 Hadith of Imam an-Nawawi. In that class I learned that the Prophet ﷺ is known to have said: “Anyone who fixes and preserves 40 hadith that are essential to the preservation of the ummah, Allah ﷻ will resurrect them among the scholars and the jurists.” It is because of inspiration from classic hadith scholars like you, and guidance from my amazing, beautiful teachers today that I believe I can accomplish this goal, inshallah.
Sincerely,
Henna Tirmizi, Ribaat Student
Student Henna Tirmizi, Ribaat Academic Institute, Written for Advanced Seminar: Muslim Men Scholars with Dr. Jumana ElSamna