Shoreshthe drift report · all case files
Case file

Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “bishr) al khakim at-termizi”. Today it says “generally known as a muhaddith”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2010

Tirmidhī (ترمذی), also transliterated as Tirmizi .1 His full name is Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ali bin Hasan bin Bashir (in some sources it is Bishr) Al Khakim At-Termizi . He is locally known as At- Termizi or Termiz Ota ("Father of Termiz city").2 Information about his life and scientific and creative activities can be found in the works by Taj ad-Din Subki (Tabakat Ash-Shafii'yya Al-kubro), Hatiba Baghdad (Tarih Baghdad), Ibn Hajara AskAlani (Lisan Al-Miyzan), Sulami (Tabakat As-Sufiyya) and in a number of other treatises.3 Al Khakim At-Termizi speaks about his life in his book "Bad'u Shaani Abu Abdullah" ("The Beginning of Abu Abdullah's Pursuit"), published in Beirut in 1965 by Yakh'ya Ismail Usman together with the work of the scientist "Hatm Al-Avliya"("Seal of the Saints"). Different dates are used in written sources and present literature to indicate Al Khakim At-Termizi's date of birth and death. Some authors, Khwaja Khalif in particular, in his "Kashf as-Zunun", give the year 255 in Hijra / 869 AD as Al Khakim At-Termizi's date of death. The same date was written on Al Khakim At-Termizi's tomb. If we proceed from the fact that Al Khakim At-Termizi lived more than one hundred years, some sources say 112, 116 or 120 years, he was born approximately between 750 – 760 AD. At the same time Abdulfattah Abdullah Baraka who wrote his great Al Khakim At-Termizi and "Nazariyyatukhu fil" Al Khakim At-Termizi and his theory thirty years ago, said that Al Khakim At-Termizi, was born in 205 in Hijri / 820 and died in 320 in Hijri / 932 and lived 112 years. Detailed information about Al Khakim At-Termizi's childhood and youth is not available in the sources. According to his "autobiography" he started learning religious sciences when he was eight and made a Hajj to Mecca when he was twenty-eight. Returning from Mecca Al Khakim At-Termizi became a Sufi follower; he withdrew from people and learned treaties. His father Ali bin Hassan was a leading scholar, a Hadith specialist, who, looking for knowledge, went to Baghdad and took an active part in scientific discussions with prominent scholars of the time on various problems of Hadith . His mother and uncle were considered to be experts of Hadith . Consequently Al Khakim At-Termizi grew up in the circle of educated and scientific people, which influenced greatly on his ideology. Some written sources contain reliable information about Al Khakim At-Termizi's teachers. His teacher was his father Ali bin Al-Hassan At Termizi "History of Baghdad" by Khatib Al-Bagdhadi contains some information. Among his other teachers were Kutaiba bin Sayid as-Sakafi Al- Balkhi (798-888 AD), Salih bin Abdullah At-Termizi of much interesting facts had been written in the book "Books about Famous People" by Ibn Khibbana; Salih bin Muhammad At-Termizi who was former qazi of Termiz for some time, Sufyan bin Vaki (died in 860), Hassan bin Umar bin Shafiq Al- Balkhi (died in 840 AD), Ahmad bin Khadravayh (died in 854 AD), Abu Turab An-Nakhshabi (link), and Yahya bin Maaz Ar-Razi (died in 875 AD). Based on data given in the written sources characterize Al Khakim At-Termizi's life and his long life can be divided into the following periods: The first period includes Al Khakim At-Termizi's childhood up to seven. Unfortunately we do not have exact information about this part of his life. But nevertheless, one can say that unlike the children of his age he displayed ability at this age to various games, as if he prepared himself to the future scientific life, he worked hard with his teachers, obtained knowledge on various sciences (particularly on theology) and got ready to mystic spiritual life. The second period embraces Al Khakim At-Termizi's life from eight to twenty eight, when he received knowledge from different teachers ( sheikhs ). Some sources pointed to the fact that he paid much attention to learning Hadith and problems of fiqh in this period of his life. The third period of his life is related to learning the Qur'an thoroughly. He assimilated by deep God's words, their essence, fasting, praying and pious deeds and so on. The philosophic mystic work by Al-Antahi "Healing of Hearts" had a great influence on him. Al Khakim At-Termizi had a lot of students, we shall mention some of them: Abu Muhammad Yahya bin Mansur Al-Kadi (died in 960 AD), Abu Ali Mansur bin Abdullah bin Khalid Al-Zuhli Al Hiravi; Abu Ali Al-Hassan bin Ali Al-Jurjani. Al Khakim At-Termizi's scientific and creative activity is closely connected with his travels to other countries and cities. He visited Balkh , Nishapur , and Baghdad , where science and culture reached its zenith and he met famous scholars and took part in discussions. Nevertheless Termiz , his native city played an important role in his scientific and creative activity and there lie created his basic works. His sermons and as well as his some works, first of All "Hatam Al-Avliya" (Seal of Saints), "Hal Ash-Shari'a" (Arguments of the Islamic Law) in which we discussed about Muslim rituals, about "love for God" and about various categories of mystics, about "the Seals of Saints", Along with existing "Seals of Prophets", dissatisfied some parts of the falikh and rich. Escaping his enemies' chase Al Khakim At-Termizi had to move to Balkh and then to Nishapur where he was very well accepted and where he obtained a large number of followers later.4

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 363222222.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “bishr) al khakim at-termizi”. Today it says “generally known as a muhaddith”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

bishr) al khakim at-termizi

Now

generally known as a muhaddith

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

← back to the drift report