I say: the ḥadith master Ibn ʿAsākir has already compiled al-Aḥnaf’s biography exhaustively in a series of booklets (1), and I myself expanded it in Tārīkh al-Islām (2)—may Allah Most High have mercy on him.

30 – ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb al-ʿAdawī * (B, M, D, T, S)
A jurist of noble lineage, Abū ʿAmr al-Qurashī al-ʿAdawī.

He was born during the lifetime of the Prophet.

He transmitted hadith from his father, and his mother was Jamīlah bint Thābit ibn Abī al-Aqlaḥ al-Anṣārī.

He was tall and sturdily built; people said his forearm measured a whole cubit plus roughly a span.

Distinguished among men, he was devout, upright, and virtuous, as well as eloquent, articulate, and a poet. Through his daughter he was the maternal grandfather of the caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.

Those who narrated from him include his two sons—Ḥafṣ and ʿUbayd Allah—and ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr.

Abū Ḥātim (3) said: “No more than a single hadith is reported from him.”

He died in 70 AH, and his brother ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar lamented:

If only death had spared ʿĀṣim behind us,
that we might all have lived on together—
or else had taken us away with him.