al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, al-Rihla fi Talab al-Hadith · 1

Seek knowledge even in China

Adds the chain, each narrator's record, and the scholars' verdicts.

اطْلُبُوا الْعِلْمَ وَلَوْ بِالصِّينِ، فَإِنَّ طَلَبَ الْعِلْمِ فَرِيضَةٌ عَلَى كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ

Seek knowledge even in China, for seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim.

Weakضعيف“Even in China” rests on one narrator the critics abandoned: Ibn Hibban and al-Albani call it baseless, al-Bayhaqi says the text is famous and its chains weak. The sentence it is attached to, “seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim”, has many routes and is graded sound by later scholars on their strength.

Source: al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, al-Rihla fi Talab al-Hadith, 1

The chain, person by person

Reliable
Truthful, lesser precision
Weak
Abandoned
Unassessed
Companion

Read upward from the book to the Prophet ﷺ. Click a narrator to see the record critics kept on them.

View this chain as a table

Narrator	Standing	Died	Received it with
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ	The Prophet ﷺ	11 AH	source
Anas ibn Malik	Companion	93 AH	the Messenger of God ﷺ said (قال رسول الله ﷺ)
Abu Atika Tarif ibn Salman	Abandoned	second century; death year not securely recorded	from (عن)
al-Hasan ibn Atiyya ibn Najih al-Qurashi	Truthful, lesser precision	211 AH	narrated to us (ثنا)
al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Affan al-Amiri	Truthful, lesser precision	270 AH	narrated to us (ثنا)
Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Asamm	Reliable	346 AH	narrated to us (ثنا)
Ali ibn Muhammad al-Tarrazi	Unassessed	fifth century; death year not entered	narrated to us (ثنا)
Ahmad ibn Ali al-Khatib al-Baghdadi	Reliable	463 AH	informed us (أنبأ)

Select a narrator to open their record: dates, teachers, and what the critics wrote, with the source for each line.

·
·
·
· Truthful.
· Truthful.
· Weak; al-Sulaymani went further against him.
· Companion

Every route, and where each one fails

Corroboration only counts when the routes are independent and their weakness is light. Lay the routes side by side and the reason the critics refused to let them support each other is plain.

Abu Atika from Anas
Weakضعيف
1. the Prophet ﷺ
2. Anas ibn Malik
3. Abu Atikaabandoned; “objectionable in hadith”, says al-Bukhari
4. al-Hasan ibn Atiyya
5. al-Khatib, al-Bayhaqi, Ibn Adi, al-Uqayli and others
The only route that does not pass through a known liar. It fails on one man, and al-Uqayli's remark that the words “even in China” are preserved from no one else is the whole story.
Al-Zuhri from Anas, through Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Asqalani
Fabricatedموضوع
1. the Prophet ﷺ
2. Anas ibn Malik
3. al-Zuhri
4. Sufyan ibn Uyaynah
5. Ubayd ibn Muhammad al-Firyabi
6. Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Asqalani“a liar”, says al-Dhahabi
In Ibn Abd al-Barr's Jami'. A chain of famous, reliable names with a liar at the bottom: the textbook shape of a forgery, which is why a chain is read from the bottom up.
Abu Hurayra, through al-Juwaybari
Fabricatedموضوع
1. the Prophet ﷺ
2. Abu Hurayra
3. Abu Salama
4. Muhammad ibn Amr
5. al-Fadl ibn Musa
6. Ahmad ibn Abdullah al-Juwaybaria known fabricator
Ibn Adi: “from al-Juwaybari's fabrications”. Two fabricated routes do not corroborate a weak one; they confirm that the saying was in circulation and that people wanted it to be a hadith.
The obligation sentence on its own
Hasan by its routesحسن
1. the Prophet ﷺ
2. Anas, and several other Companions
3. some twenty Successors from Anas alone
4. dozens of routes, none sound by itself
“Seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim” is a different case: many routes, each with a light weakness, through different people. That is what corroboration can repair, and al-Mizzi, al-Suyuti and al-Albani accepted it on that basis.

Tinted names appear in more than one route: Anas ibn Malik. Routes that share a narrator below the Companion are not independent of each other at that point.

Who graded it, and why

We do not grade hadith. Each line is a named scholar's verdict, where they gave it, and the reason they gave. Disagreement is shown, not resolved.

Scholar	Verdict	Where	Reason given
al-Bazzar d. 292 AH	No basisموضوع the whole report	al-Bahr al-Zakhkhar 1/172–175, no. 95	Abu Atika is unknown, nor is it known where he is from; so the hadith has no basis.
al-Uqayli d. 322 AH	Abandoned narratorضعيف the words “even in China”	al-Du'afa al-Kabir 2/230	The words “even in China” are preserved only from Abu Atika, who is abandoned in hadith.
Ibn Hibban d. 354 AH	Baselessموضوع the whole report	al-Majruhin 1/489	Abu Atika transmits from Anas what does not resemble Anas's hadith; this report is baseless.
al-Bayhaqi d. 458 AH	Chains weakضعيف the whole report	al-Madkhal ila al-Sunan 1/292; Shu'ab al-Iman	Its text is famous and its chains are weak; he knows of no chain by which such a hadith could be established.
Ibn Abd al-Barr d. 463 AH	All routes defectiveضعيف every route from Anas, China wording included	Jami' Bayan al-Ilm, head of the chapter on the obligation hadith	Transmitted from Anas by many routes, all defective; none is a proof for the people of hadith as far as the chain is concerned.
Ibn al-Jawzi d. 597 AH	Not sound; placed among the fabricationsموضوع the whole report	al-Mawdu'at 1/347	Included in his collection of fabrications, citing al-Bukhari and Ibn Hibban on Abu Atika; he also faults al-Hasan ibn Atiyya, misquoting Abu Hatim, who in fact called him truthful.
al-Sakhawi d. 902 AH	Weakضعيف the words “even in China”	al-Maqasid al-Hasana, no. 126	Weak by both its routes; records Ibn Hibban's “baseless” and Ibn al-Jawzi's placement among the fabrications.
al-Albani d. 1420 AH	Baselessموضوع the words “even in China”	al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 416; Hidayat al-Ruwat 214	Agrees with Ibn Hibban and Ibn al-Jawzi: the first half is baseless and has no route fit to support it.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal d. 241 AH	Nothing establishedضعيف the obligation sentence	al-Muntakhab min al-Ilal li-l-Khallal 108	None of the routes of “seeking knowledge is an obligation” is established with him.
al-Mizzi d. 742 AH	Hasan by its routesحسن the obligation sentence	quoted by al-Sakhawi and by al-Suyuti in Tadrib al-Rawi, section on the mashhur	Transmitted by routes that together reach the rank of hasan.
al-Suyuti d. 911 AH	Sahih by its witnessesصحيح the obligation sentence	quoted in Fayd al-Qadir 4/267, no. 5264	Collected fifty routes and judged it sound on their combined strength; marks the “China” wording weak in al-Jami' al-Saghir.
al-Albani d. 1420 AH	Sahihصحيح the obligation sentence	Sahih al-Jami' 3914; Hidayat al-Ruwat 214	Sound by its many routes; adds that the extension “and every Muslim woman” has no basis in any of them.

What this chain teaches about the method

The most famous version is the weakest

Almost everyone has heard “even in China”. The critics traced those three words to one man, Abu Atika; the only other routes run through a liar and a known fabricator, which is to say no one corroborates him. Fame among the public is not a category the discipline recognises; the technical word mashhur means something else entirely.

A verdict applies to a wording, not a topic

The same breath contains two sentences with two different fates. “Seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim” has dozens of routes, none sound alone, and later scholars accepted it on their combined strength. “Even in China” has one route and nothing to lean on. Showing the scope of each verdict is the difference between information and noise.

Weak is not false, and quoting it is not lying

The meaning is fine; the attribution is what fails. The discipline's question is never “is this wise?” but “did he say it?”, and it answers only the second. Someone who quotes this line is repeating a famous saying, not fabricating a hadith, but they should not say “the Prophet ﷺ said”.

A great book is not a grade

Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a master of the discipline, opened his book on travelling for knowledge with this report. Scholars commonly cited weak reports under virtues, and left the grading to the rijal books. Inclusion means “this is in circulation”, not “this is sound”. The modern editor of the same book marks it weak in the footnote.

Corroboration has rules

Why can many weak routes lift the obligation sentence but not the China clause? Because corroboration requires independent routes whose weakness is mild, not routes that all return to the same abandoned narrator or to liars. Al-Albani, who accepts the first sentence, rejects the second for exactly this reason.

Terms used here

Matruk متروك: Abandoned: a narrator whose reports the critics set aside entirely, usually for being accused of lying or for gross error.
Munkar al-hadith منكر الحديث: Al-Bukhari's formula for a narrator whose reports are objectionable; he said it was not permissible to narrate from such a person.
Batil باطل: Baseless: a report with no sound origin at all.
La asla lahu لا أصل له: “It has no basis”: no chain exists by which it could be established.
Mashhur مشهور: Technically, a report with three or more narrators at every level, short of mass transmission; colloquially, a report everyone has heard. The two meanings come apart here.
Sahih li-ghayrihi صحيح لغيره: Sound by its witnesses: a text whose individual chains are below sahih but whose independent routes together raise it.

Context

The obligation sentence is itself the subject of a celebrated disagreement. Ahmad, Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, al-Bazzar and Ibn al-Jawzi held that none of its chains is sound, and Ishaq said the obligation is real even if the report is not. Al-Mizzi, al-Suyuti and al-Albani accepted it on the strength of its many routes, and al-Iraqi reports that some imams graded its routes sound; Ibn al-Salah had used it as his example of a report famous among people but not sound. Al-Sakhawi also warned that the addition “and every Muslim woman” appears in none of its routes.

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Sources for this page: al-Khatib, al-Rihla fi Talab al-Hadith, 1, with the editor's notes (Shamela) · Abu Atika in the biographical dictionaries (Hawramani) · Verdict index for the China wording (dorar.net) · Verdict index for the obligation sentence (dorar.net) · Takhrij of both sentences (Shamela)

The Hadith ProjectWeakضعيف

اطْلُبُوا الْعِلْمَ وَلَوْ بِالصِّينِ، فَإِنَّ طَلَبَ الْعِلْمِ فَرِيضَةٌ عَلَى كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ

Seek knowledge even in China, for seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim.

al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, al-Rihla fi Talab al-Hadith, 1

al-Khatib al-Baghdadi
Ali al-Tarrazi
al-Asamm
al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Amiri
al-Hasan ibn Atiyya
Abu Atika
Anas ibn Malik
the Prophet ﷺ

7 narrators · 12 scholarly verdicts on record

https://thehadithproject.com/h/seek-knowledge-even-in-china/