Imam al-Tirmidhi did not confine himself to acquiring knowledge from the scholars in Tirmidh, whether from its inhabitants or those who came to it. Rather, he traveled in pursuit of knowledge, following the custom of the distinguished students of learning in his time. Al-Hafiz al-Mizzi mentioned in the margin of *Tahdhib al-Kamal*, in the biography of Ahmad ibn 'Ubayd Allah ibn Suhayl, that al-Tirmidhi's journey took place after the year 240 AH.

However, his statement "after 240 AH" is open to scrutiny, for it has been established for us through the biographies of his earlier teachers from whom al-Tirmidhi took and heard that his journey was before that. For he heard from Qutaybah ibn Sa'id al-Baghlani, who died in the year 240 AH, having lived a long life, and he was among the teachers of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. He also heard from Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, who died in the year 238 AH, and from 'Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Sulayman al-Wasiti, who died in the year 237 AH, and from Muhammad ibn 'Amr al-Sawwaq al-Balkhi, who died in the year 236 AH, and from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Musa al-Marwazi al-Simsar, who died in the year 235 AH. He likewise heard from a number of teachers whose deaths are dated to the years 239 AH and 240 AH.

His journey was to the other cities of Khurasan, for he entered Bukhara, as Ghunjar, the author of *Tarikh Bukhara*, explicitly stated, and he entered Marw and al-Rayy, then Iraq, where he entered Basra, Wasit, Kufa, and Baghdad, and then the Hijaz.

As for the statement of Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir: "But I do not think he entered Baghdad," and the concurrence with him of Dr. Nur al-Din 'Itr and Dr. Muhammad Habib Allah Mukhtar—