Al-Ḥākim mentions him in his book “Muzakkī al-Akhbār,” saying: “He is one of the senior Successors.”
Yet this judgment is inaccurate, for the leading stratum of the Successors comprises ʿAlqamah, al-Aswad, Qays ibn Abī Ḥāzim, ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr al-Makkī, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, Kathīr ibn Murrah, Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī, and their peers.
The middle stratum of the Successors includes such figures as ʿUrwah, al-Qāsim, Ṭāwūs, al-Ḥasan, Ibn Sīrīn, and ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ.
Only with some effort could ʿAmr ibn Dīnār be placed in this tier; more properly he belongs to the class that follows them—people like Thābit al-Bunānī, Abū Isḥāq al-Sabiʿī, Makḥūl, Abū Qabīl al-Maʿāfirī, and the like. Unless Abū ʿAbd Allāh (al-Ḥākim) meant by “senior” that he excelled them in virtue and prestige, the description does not apply.
Al-Ḥākim further said: “He was among the foremost ḥuffāẓ (master memorizers of ḥadīth).”
For thirty years he issued legal rulings in Mecca.
He heard ḥadīth from Ibn ʿUmar, Ibn ʿAbbās, Jābir, Ibn al-Zubayr, Abū Saʿīd, al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, Abū Hurayrah, Zayd ibn Arqam, Anas, al-Miswar ibn Makhramah, and Abū al-Ṭufayl.
I add: he also heard from Bajālah ibn ʿAbadah, ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr al-Laythī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muṭʿim, Abū al-Shaʿthāʾ Jābir ibn Zayd, Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Ṭāwūs, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, and several others.
His chain of transmission extends down to Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir and those of his generation.
His narration from Abū Hurayrah is found in Sunan Ibn Mājah, though Abū Zurʿah maintained that he never actually heard from Abū Hurayrah.
He was a veritable repository of knowledge and one of the imams of ijtihād.
Among those who reported from him are Ibn Abī Mulaykah—who was older than he—Qatādah ibn Diʿāmah, al-Zuhrī, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Najīḥ, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Maysarah, Ibn Jurayj, Shuʿbah, Sufyān al-Thawrī, the two Ḥammāds, Waraqāʾ ibn ʿUmar, Muḥammad ibn Muslim al-Ṭāʾifī, Dāwūd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿAṭṭār, Ibrāhīm ibn Ṭahmān, Rawḥ ibn al-Qāsim, Zamʿah ibn Ṣāliḥ, Sulaymān ibn Kathīr, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, and Maʿqil