—of his age, an exemplar for Qur’anic commentators and hadith scholars: Abū al-Khaṭṭāb al-Sadūsī, the Basran, blind from birth.
Sadūs is Shaybān ibn Dhuhl ibn Thaʿlabah of the tribe of Bakr ibn Wāʾil.
He was born in the year 60 AH.
He transmitted hadith from: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sarjis; Anas ibn Mālik; Abū al-Tufayl al-Kinānī; Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib; Abū al-ʿĀliyah Rufaʿī al-Riyāḥī; Ṣafwān ibn Muḥriz; Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī; Zurārah ibn Awfā; al-Naḍr ibn Anas; ʿIkrimah, the freedman of Ibn ʿAbbās; Abū al-Malīḥ ibn Usāmah; al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī; Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Muzanī; Abū Ḥassān al-Aʿraj; Hilāl ibn Yazīd; ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ; Muʿādhah al-ʿAdawiyyah; Bishr ibn ʿĀʾidh al-Minqarī; Bishr ibn al-Muḥtafiz; Bushayr ibn Kaʿb; Abū al-Shaʿthāʾ Jābir ibn Zayd; Jurayy ibn Kulayb al-Sadūsī; Ḥabīb ibn Sālim—in a letter he wrote to him—Ḥassān ibn Bilāl; Ḥumayd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf; Khālid ibn ʿUrfuta; Khilās al-Hajarī; Khaythamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd; Shahr ibn Ḥawshab; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaqīq; ʿUqbah ibn Ṣuhbān; Muṭarrif ibn al-Shikhkhīr; Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn; Naṣr ibn ʿĀṣim al-Laythī; Abū Mijlaz; Abū Ayyūb al-Marāghī; and Abū al-Jawzāʾ al-Rabīʿī.
He also related—mursal—from ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, Safīnah, and Abū Hurayrah.
Likewise he narrated from Muslim ibn Yasār, Qazaʿah ibn Yaḥyā, ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī, and many others.
He was one of the great repositories of knowledge, famed for a memory that became proverbial.
Leaders of the Islamic scholarly tradition transmitted from him: Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Ibn Abī ʿArūbah, Maʿmar ibn Rāshid, al-Awzāʿī, Misʿar ibn Kidām, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith of Egypt, Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj, Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim, Shaybān al-Naḥwī, Hammām ibn Yaḥyā, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, Abān al-ʿAṭṭār, Saʿīd ibn Bashīr, Salām ibn Abī Muṭīʿ, Shihāb ibn Khirāsh, Ḥusām ibn Miṣakk, Khulayid ibn Dalaj, Saʿīd ibn Zarbā, al-Ṣaʿiq ibn Ḥazn, ʿUfair ibn Maʿdān, Mūsā ibn Khalaf al-ʿAmmī, and Yazīd ibn Ibrāhīm.