ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmmārah al-Anṣārī stated: He belonged to the Aws, one of their own. He then traced his lineage, saying: He is the son of al-Tayyihān ibn Mālik ibn ʿAmr ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Jusham ibn al-Ḥārith ibn al-Khazraj ibn ʿAmr ibn Mālik ibn al-Aws. His mother came from that very Banu Jusham.

Al-Wāqidī said: In the pre-Islamic era Abū al-Haytham loathed idols, sighed at them in disgust, and, together with Asʿad ibn Zurārah, affirmed tawḥīd (monotheism). They were among the first of the Anṣār to accept Islam in Mecca. He is counted among the eight who met the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Mecca, among the six, among the twelve who gave the first ʿAqabah pledge, and among the seventy (1).

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ paired him in brotherhood with ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn. He was present at Badr and the subsequent campaigns, and the Prophet ﷺ later sent him to Khaybar (2) as a khāriṣ, an assessor of produce (3), succeeding Ibn Rawāḥah.

Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥibbān related that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ once dispatched Abū al-Haytham as an assessor. When Abū Bakr later appointed him to the same task, he declined, saying, “Whenever I carried out an assessment for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and returned, he would pray for me.”

Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān reported that Abū al-Haytham died during the caliphate of ʿUmar.