Career
Al-Khallal was a student of five of Ahmad ibn Hanbal's direct students, including Ibn Hanbal's son Abdullah. He was considered the principal Hanbalite scholar of his time. Al-Khallal's exact date of birth is not known.
He died in 923 at the age of 78, which means that he must have been born during Ibn Hanbal's twilight years. The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History estimates al-Khallal's year of birth as 848. Aside from his legal efforts, virtually nothing is known of al-Khallal's life.
During his efforts to compile the views of Ibn Hanbal, al-Khallal ended up spending periods of time living in Fars Province, Syria and Mesopotamia. Al-Khallal's status within the school was not universally accepted, and he and his students were often in conflict with fellow Hanbalite Al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Barbahari and his students. The historian Dhahabi stated that, "Before him (al-Khallal) there were no independent school of the imam's.
Not until he followed up Ahmed's texts, wrote them down and checked there proofs after 300 A.H.".
