—nor anyone else when it came to reliable preservation.
He added, “ʿAmr was the client of those people, but Allah ennobled him through knowledge.”
ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī reports: Sufyān narrated to us, saying, “I saw Mālik and ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿUmar come to ʿAmr ibn Dīnār. ʿAmr said to ʿUbayd Allah, ‘What has become of your master Thābit?’—meaning Thābit al-Aʿraj. He replied, ‘He is still alive.’ ʿAmr then mentioned the case of a divorce pronounced under coercion. Later on,” Sufyān added, “we heard that narration directly from him.”
Sufyān also said, “We encountered ʿAmr when all his teeth had fallen out except a single canine; had we not spent a long time in his company, we would not have understood his speech.”
Ibn Abī ʿUmar relates, “I heard Sufyān say, ‘How exceptionally reliable ʿAmr ibn Dīnār was!’”
Ibrāhīm ibn Bashshār reports from Sufyān: “Someone asked Iyās ibn Muʿāwiyah, ‘Whom among the people of Mecca did you find the most learned in jurisprudence?’ He replied, ‘The worst-tempered of them—ʿAmr ibn Dīnār—who, whenever I questioned him about a ḥadīth, would dig at his eye.’”
Ibn Bashshār adds, “I likewise heard Sufyān say: ‘Whenever ʿAmr ibn Dīnār began a ḥadīth on his own, he delivered it sound and orderly; but if he was asked about a ḥadīth, he would lie back and say, “My stomach, my stomach.”’”
Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād relates that Ibn ʿUyainah said, “Among us no one was more versed in jurisprudence than ʿAmr ibn Dīnār—none more knowledgeable, none with a better memory.”
Isḥāq al-Salūlī reports: ʿAmr ibn Thābit narrated to us, “I heard Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Bāqir say, ‘What increases my eagerness for the pilgrimage is the chance to meet ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, for he loves us and benefits us.’”
Ibn ʿUyainah also said, “I asked ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, ‘Abū Muḥammad, have you ever heard of Abū Ṣāliḥ?’ He replied, ‘No—and who even knows who Abū Ṣāliḥ is?’” Al-Ḥākim comments that he meant the Abū Ṣāliḥ from whom al-Kalbī transmits on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās.
Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq al-Ṭalaqānī reports: “I heard Ibn ʿUyainah say: They asked ʿAṭāʾ, ‘From whom do you advise us to take?’ He answered, ‘From ʿAmr ibn Dīnār.’”