Sufyan ibn ʽUyaynah

Abū Muḥammad Sufyān ibn ʽUyaynah ibn Maymūn al-Hilālī al-Kūfī (Arabic: أبو محمد سفيان بن عيينة بن ميمون الهلالي الكوفي) (725 – (814-02-25)February 25, 814) was a prominent eighth-century Islamic religious scholar from Mecca.

However, when al-Qasrī was removed from his position his successor sought out his governors causing ʽUyaynah to flee to Mecca where he then settled.

[2] He said of himself that he first sat formally with a religious instructor at 12 when he attended the lessons of ʻAbd al-Karīm Abū Umayyah.

ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī described him as from the most knowledgeable people of the hadith of the inhabitants of the Tihamah region of what is now Saudi Arabia.

He was lauded by Muḥammad Ibn Ismāʼīl al-Bukhārī for his memorizing ability, an essential quality for a hadith narrator.

Not just a transmitter of recorded knowledge, his student al-Shāfiʽī said he had not seen anyone more adept at explaining the meaning of hadiths than Ibn ʽUyaynah.

His humility was also illustrated by al-Shāfiʽī's mention of Ibn ʽUyaynah's reluctance to give religious verdicts.