wearing a red, saffron-dyed mantle, and he had blackened his beard. I turned back and therefore heard nothing from him.
Ali ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz told us; Muslim told us; Hammad ibn Salamah told us:
“I would ask Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman about musnad hadiths—while the people around him were questioning him about his personal opinions. Whenever I came forward, he would say, ‘May God not bring you here!’ ”
Abu Dawud said, “I heard Abu ʿAbd Allah [Ahmad ibn Hanbal] say:
‘Hammad’s hadith is acceptable in the main; what Sufyan and Shuʿbah narrate from him is sound. But the material that Hammad ibn Salamah reports from him is mixed up.’ ”
I asked Ahmad, “Which do you prefer in their narrations from Ibrahim—Abu Maʿshar or Hammad?”
He replied, “There is hardly any difference between the two!”
Al-Athram relates from Abu ʿAbd Allah:
“The reports of the early transmitters from Hammad are satisfactory—such as those of Shuʿbah, Sufyan, and Hisham. Others, however, have brought from him astonishing things.”
I said to him, “And what of Hajjaj and Hammad ibn Salamah?”
He answered, “Hammad, in that respect, is not objectionable.”
Ahmad then added, “More than one narrator has slipped in his transmissions—Muhammad ibn Jabir, for example, and others,” and he gestured with his hand. We thought he meant Salamah al-Ahmar or someone else.
His scribe commented, “The confusion lies only in the poor retention of those who narrated from him.”
Ibn ʿAdi said, “In the narration of Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman there occur isolated and singular reports, yet there is no harm in him; he is fairly steady in hadith.”
Hammad died in the year 120 AH, according to Khalifah. It is also said that he died in 119 AH.
The most learned jurists of Kufah were ʿAli and Ibn Masʿud; the most learned of their disciples was ʿAlqamah; the most learned of his disciples was Ibrahim; the most learned of Ibrahim’s disciples was Hammad; the most learned of Hammad’s disciples was Abu Hanifah; and the most learned of his disciples was Abu Yusuf.
Abu Yusuf’s students then spread to the far regions, the most learned among them being Muhammad, and the most learned of Muhammad’s students being Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Shafiʿi—may Allah, Exalted is He, have mercy upon them all.