153 – Zayd ibn Aslam, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAdawī al-ʿUmarī
A leading scholar, an unimpeachable authority, and an exemplar among the People of Knowledge; a Medinan jurist of the ʿAdawī line descended from ʿUmar.

He transmitted reports from his father — Aslam, the freedman of ʿUmar — as well as from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ, Anas ibn Mālik, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, Ibn al-Musayyib, and many others.

Among those who narrated from him are Mālik ibn Anas, Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Awzāʿī, Hishām ibn Saʿd, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Darāwardī, and his sons Usāmah, ʿAbd Allāh, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, together with a host of other students.

He held a regular study circle in the Prophet’s Mosque.

Abū Ḥāzim al-Aʿraj recounted, “I once saw forty jurists in Zayd ibn Aslam’s gathering; the least of our qualities was that we consoled one another with whatever Allah had placed in our hands. I never witnessed in his circle two people arguing or disputing about a report that brought us no benefit.”

Abū Ḥāzim also used to say, “May Allah never show me the day when Zayd ibn Aslam is gone, for no one pleases me more, with respect to my religion and to my own soul, than he.” When the news of Zayd’s death reached him, he was struck with grief and did not attend the funeral.

Al-Bukhārī relates that ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn would sit with Zayd ibn Aslam. When someone asked him about that, he replied, “A man sits only with the one who benefits him in his religion.”

I (the author) add: Zayd produced a Qurʾānic commentary that his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān transmitted on his authority; Zayd was among those scholars who lived by what they knew.

His son recorded his passing in Dhū al-Ḥijjah, 136 AH.

More than two hundred hadiths traced back to Zayd are preserved.