ibn Luʾayy ibn Ghalib, a Qurashite of the Jumah clan from Mecca.
He embraced Islam after the Conquest, narrated several hadiths, his Islam was sound, and at Yarmuk he served as commander of a kurdus (a military detachment).
It is also said that he visited Muʿāwiya, who granted him the property known as Ṣafwān Alley.
Those who reported from him include his son ʿAbdullāh; his nephew Ḥumayd; Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib; Ṭāwūs; ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Nawfal; ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ; and others.
He was one of the elders of Quraysh, and his father was killed alongside Abū Jahl.
Mālik narrated—from Ibn Shihāb—from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Ṣafwān—that Ṣafwān, meaning his grandfather, was told, “Whoever does not migrate will perish.” So he came to Medina, slept in the Mosque with his cloak under his head, and a thief came and took it. Ṣafwān caught the thief and brought him to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who ordered that the thief’s hand be cut off. Ṣafwān said, “I did not intend this; I have given it to him as charity.” He replied, “Why did you not do that before bringing him to me?” (1)
= 278; Khalifa, Tarikh, 111, 205; al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 4/304; al-Maʿarif, 342; Tarikh al-Fasawi, 1/309; al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 4/421; al-Mustadrak, 3/428; al-Istibsar, 93; al-Istiʿab, 2/718; Ibn ʿAsakir, 8/159/1; Usd al-Ghaba, 3/23; Tahdhib al-Kamal, 608; Tarikh al-Islam, 2/228; al-ʿIbar, 1/50; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 4/424-425; al-Isaba, 5/145; Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, 174; Shadharat al-Dhahab, 1/52; Tahdhib Ibn ʿAsakir, 6/429.
(1) Al-Muwattaʾ, 3/49, Book of Hudud, chapter “Refraining from interceding for the thief once the case has reached the ruler.” All its transmitters are reliable, but the chain is mursal (a link is missing). Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr states that the majority of Malik’s pupils relate it as mursal. Abu ʿAsim al-Nabil alone narrated it from Malik, from al-Zuhri, from Safwan ibn ʿAbd Allah, from his grandfather; no one besides Abu ʿAsim added “from his grandfather.” Shababa ibn Sawwar transmitted it from Malik, from al-Zuhri, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Safwan, from his father. Ahmad (3/401) recorded it through the isnad of Ruh, from Muhammad ibn Abi Hafsa, from al-Zuhri, from Safwan ibn ʿAbd Allah, from his father—an uninterrupted chain whose transmitters are trustworthy. He then recorded it again (6/465) through the same route but omitted “from his father.”