Imām Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 327 AH) said whilst mentioning the travels of his father, the Imām Abū Ḥātim (d. 277 AH) in the pursuit of ḥadīth; “I heard my father say, ‘The first time I travelled to study ḥadīth, I spent seven years in which I counted the steps I walked, they exceeded a thousand leagues – a league is the distance of one hour and a half – and then I stopped counting. As for travelling from Kūfah to Baghdād, they were of countless times. From Makkah to Madīnah [I travelled] many times. I slipped out from the sea near Madīnah [all the way] to Egypt walking, then by foot from Egypt to Ramlāh. I then walked from Ramlāh to Bayt al-Maqdis and then from al-Ramlāh to Asqalān. I then travelled from Ramlāh to Tiberius and from Tiberius to Damascus. Thereafter, I travelled from Damascus to Homs, from Homs to Antakya and then to Tarsus. I then returned from Tarsus and went back to Homs. I had some ḥadīth left to hear from Abī al-Yamānī, so I heard from him. I then left Homs to Bayt She’an and thereafter to Raqqah. I then rode from Raqqah to the Euphrates to Baghdād, before I departed for Shām. I went to Wāsit and then to the Nile. From the Nile I went to Kūfah. All of that was by foot on my first journey [in pursuit of knowledge] for seven years, whilst I was twenty years of age. I departed Rayy in the year 213 AH in the month of Ramaḍān, and returned in the year 221 AH.”¹

An explanation of the creed of the two Rāzīs’ – Abū Zūrʿah al-Rāzī (d 264 A.H)  and Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 277 AH) delivery by Islamic University of Madīnah graduate – Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Uways al-Ṭawīl

¹ Ibn Abī Ḥātim, ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad, al-Jarḥ wa-al-taʻdīl (1/359), ʻAmmān : Dār al-Quṭūf lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʻ, 2011.