31 – Aslam al-ʿAdawī al-ʿUmarī, the freedman of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb * (ʿ)

A jurist and leading scholar, Abū Zayd—though some say Abū Khālid—al-Qurashī, al-ʿAdawī, al-ʿUmarī, the client of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

It was said that he was among the captives taken at ʿAyn al-Tamar (1); others claimed he was Yemeni; still others maintained he was Ethiopian, adding that ʿUmar bought him in Mecca when he led the people’s pilgrimage the year after the Farewell Pilgrimage, during the caliphate of al-Ṣiddīq.

Al-Wāqidī recounted: “I heard Usāmah ibn Zayd ibn Aslam say, ‘We belong to the Ashʿarīs, yet we do not deny ʿUmar’s favor to us, may Allah be pleased with him.’”

He transmitted hadith from Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Muʿādh, Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrah, Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, Ibn ʿUmar, and others.

Among those who narrated from him were his son Zayd, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, Nāfiʿ the freedman of Ibn ʿUmar, Muslim ibn Jundub, and many others.

Al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad reports from Aslam that he said, “We arrived at al-Jābiyah with ʿUmar, and a thick syrup resembling concentrated date-molasses was brought to us.”

I say: that is the granular dibs (2).

Hishām ibn Saʿd narrated to us, from Zayd ibn Aslam, from his father, who said: “ʿUmar purchased me …”