Nuʿaym ibn Maysarah reported that Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: “Were I given the choice of whose likeness I would appear in when I meet Allah—exalted is He—I would choose Zubayd al-Yāmī.”

ʿAbd Allah ibn Idrīs narrated from ʿUqbah ibn Isḥāq, who said: “Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir used to visit Zubayd ibn al-Ḥārith. He would speak to him about the Prophet’s Household, rubbing his eyes so that the tears flowed, trying to persuade him to join the uprising during the days of Zayd ibn ʿAlī. Zubayd replied, ‘I will not march out except with a prophet, and I have found no prophet.’”

The author says: There is disagreement over Zubayd’s teknonym; some say it was Abū ʿAbd Allah, others Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.

Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān said, “Zubayd is firmly reliable.”

Abū Ḥātim and others likewise declared him “trustworthy.”

Layth narrated from Mujāhid, who said: “The four men of Kūfah who impress me the most are …,” and he counted Zubayd among them.

Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād said: “Whenever I saw Zubayd ibn al-Ḥārith coming back from the market, my heart would quake.”

Shujāʿ ibn al-Walid narrated from ʿImrān ibn ʿAmr: “My uncle Zubayd was on pilgrimage and needed wuduʾ, so he rose, withdrew, relieved himself, and returned. To his surprise he found water in a place where we had none, so he performed ablution. He then came to inform us; we went there but found nothing.”

Yūnus ibn Muḥammad al-Muʾaddib reported from Ziyād: “Zubayd was the muezzin of his mosque. He would say to the boys, ‘Come and pray and I will give you walnuts.’ They would pray and then surround him. I spoke to him about it, and he said, ‘What harm is it to me if I buy them walnuts for five dirhams and they become accustomed to prayer?’”

It has also reached us that on rainy nights Zubayd would go round to the old women of the neighborhood asking, “Do you need anything from the market?”

Al-Ḥasan ibn Ḥayy reported that Zubayd said, “I heard a single saying, and Allah benefited me through it for thirty years.”