Abu ʿAlī al-Ghassānī said, “The hadith concerning advance purchase (salam) is transmitted by Ibn Abī Najīḥ from ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr, from Abū al-Minhāl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muṭʿim, from Ibn ʿAbbās.” He then added:
Abu al-Ḥasan al-Qābisī and others said, “The transmitter is Ibn Kathīr the Qurʾān-reciter.”
He replied, “That is incorrect; rather, he is ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr ibn al-Muṭṭalib al-Sahmī—as al-Kalābādhī recorded. He was the brother of Kathīr ibn Kathīr, and he has nothing in the Ṣaḥīḥ except the hadith on salam (1) that appears in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.”
Al-Dāraqutnī, al-Ḥākim, and others likewise listed ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr ibn al-Muṭṭalib among the transmitters of the two Ṣaḥīḥs.
Al-Bukhārī mentioned him in his History, but erred by affiliating him with Banū ʿAbd al-Dār.
Abu Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ said, “ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr the reciter, al-Dārī, was a client of Banū ʿAbd al-Dār.”
Ibn al-Madīnī said, “Those who narrated from al-Dārī include Ayyūb and Ibn Jurayj, and he was reliable.”
Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl, reporting from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, said, “I saw Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ reciting to ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr.”
Ibn ʿUyaynah remarked, “In Mecca no one was more proficient in recitation than Ḥumayd ibn Qays and ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr.”
Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim said, “I saw ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr; he was eloquent in the Qurʾān.”
Al-Dānī recorded that Ibn Kathīr learned his mode of recitation from ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Sāʾib.
Ibn Mujāhid said, “Bishr ibn Mūsā narrated to us, al-Ḥumaydī narrated to us, from Sufyān; he said: Qāsim al-Raḥḥāl informed us at the funeral of ʿAbd Allah ibn Kathīr—that is, in the year twenty (120 AH).”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad and al-Musallam ibn ʿAllān told us, saying: Hanbal informed us