Mālik transmitted—through Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn—that he heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Hurmuz al-Aʿraj say:
“I never found the people except that they were invoking curses upon the unbelievers during Ramadan. The reciter would complete Sūrat al-Baqarah in eight rakʿahs, and if he performed it in twelve the people considered that he had shortened the prayer (1).”
Ibn Luhayʿah—on the authority of Abū al-Naḍr—said:
“ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Hurmuz was the first to set down Arabic grammar, and he was the most knowledgeable of all people regarding the genealogies of Quraysh.”
It was also said that he learned Arabic from Abū al-Aswad al-Dīlī.
It so happened that al-Aʿraj travelled near the end of his life to Egypt and died while stationed on the frontier in Alexandria. Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī and others dated his death to the year 117 AH, and I think he lived beyond eighty.
26 – Abū al-Safar Saʿīd ibn Yuḥmid al-Hamdanī (ʿ)
He is Saʿīd ibn Yuḥmid al-Hamdanī, the Kufan jurist. He narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr, Ibn ʿUmar, and Nājiya ibn Kaʿb. Among those who transmitted from him are al-Aʿmash, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq, Mālik ibn Mighwal, and others. Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and others declared him reliable. He died in 113 AH.