al-Wāqidī—that he died in the reign of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz—is a mistake; he actually died in the first decade of the second century AH.
ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Nujūd said: “I asked Abū Wāʾil, ‘Did you witness Ṣiffīn?’ He replied, ‘Yes—and how wretched those battle-lines were!’
He was asked, ‘Which of the two do you love more, ʿAlī or ʿUthmān?’ He answered, ‘ʿAlī; later ʿUthmān became dearer to me.’
ʿĀmir ibn Shaqīq narrates from Abū Wāʾil: “Ibn Ziyād put me in charge of the treasury. A man came to me with a writ instructing me to give the kitchen steward eight hundred dirhams. I went to Ibn Ziyād and spoke to him about such extravagance. He said, ‘Put down the keys and leave.’⦗1⦘
Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd and Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān informed us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qudāmah informed us; Abū Bakr ibn al-Naqqūr informed us; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAllāf informed us; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ḥammāmī narrated to us; ʿUthmān ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī Dāwūd narrated to us; Abū Badr narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn Mihrān—from Shaqīq ibn Salamah—who said:
ʿAbd Allāh said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Paradise is closer to any one of you than the strap of his sandal, and so is the Fire.”⦗2⦘
- Zirr ibn Ḥubaysh ibn Ḥubāshah ibn Aws al-Asadī* (ʿ)
The Imām, the exemplar, Qur’an instructor of Kūfah alongside al-Sulamī; Abū Maryam al-Asadī, al-Kūfī, also kunya Abū Muṭarrif. He lived through the Days of Ignorance.