Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ⦗1⦘ ibn Ghanm, Abū Asmāʾ al-Raḥabī, Abū Mālik al-Ashʿarī, al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, and a number of others.
Abū Mushir reported that Abū Salām had also heard ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit at Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem).
Those who transmitted from him include his two grandsons—Yazīd and Muʿāwiyah the sons of Salām—Makḥūl, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zabr, al-Awzāʿī, and several others.
He lived to a great age.
Aḥmad al-ʿIjlī and other scholars declared him reliable.
He also wrote to Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, sending him some of the traditions he had transmitted.
During his caliphate, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz summoned him by express courier so that he could hear directly from him what he had received from Thawbān regarding the Prophet’s Basin ⦗2⦘. He said to him:
(1) The printed edition reads “ʿAbd al-Rahim,” which is a copyist’s error; we have corrected it on the basis of al-Tahdhib.
(2) The hadith of Thawban concerning the hawd (Prophetic Basin) is narrated by Ahmad (5/275) through the chain al-Husayn b. Muhammad – Ibn ʿAyyash – Muhammad b. al-Muhajir – al-ʿAbbas b. Salim al-Lakhmi, who related that ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz sent for Abu Salam al-Habashi by express courier to question him about the hawd. When he arrived, Abu Salam said: “I heard Thawban say: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declare: ‘My hawd extends from ʿAdan to ʿAmman al-Balqa. Its water is whiter than milk and sweeter than honey; its cups are as numerous as the stars. Whoever drinks from it once will never thirst again. The first to reach it will be the poor of the muhajirun.’ ʿUmar b. al-Khattab asked, ‘Who are they, O Messenger of Allah?’ He replied, ‘Those with unkempt hair and soiled clothes, who do not marry women of luxury and to whom the doors of palaces are not opened.’”
Hearing this, ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz said, “I have indeed married women of luxury and the doors of palaces have been opened for me—unless Allah shows me mercy. By Allah, I shall not oil my hair until it is dishevelled, nor wash the garment next to my body until it becomes dirty.”
Al-Tirmidhi (2444, Kitab al-Qiyama, chapter on the description of the hawd’s vessels) and Ibn Majah (4303, Kitab al-Zuhd, chapter on the hawd) also record the hadith through the chain Muhammad b. al-Muhajir – al-ʿAbbas b. Salim – Ibn Salam. The isnad is sound; al-Hakim authenticated it, and the author concurred in his Mukhtasar.
Muslim (2301) and Ahmad as well (5/280, 282) transmit—via Salim b. Abi al-Jaʿd – Maʿdan b. Abi Talha – Thawban—that the Prophet ﷺ said: “I will be at the centre of my hawd, warding people off from it for the sake of the people of Yemen; I shall strike with my staff until the water cascades over them.” When asked about its width he replied, “From where I stand to ʿAmman,” and when asked about its drink he said, “Whiter than milk and sweeter than honey; two gutters flow into it from Paradise, one of gold and the other of silver.”