Abū Zurʿah and al-Nasāʾī considered him somewhat weak. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim he is the transmitter of the report, “May Allah never fill his stomach.” (1)

177 – Al-Kumayt ibn Zayd al-Asadī, the Kūfan
He was the foremost poet of his age. It is said that his collected verse reached five thousand lines.

He heard (hadith) from al-Farazdaq and Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir, and in turn was narrated from by Wālibah ibn al-Ḥabbāb, Abān ibn Taghlib, and Ḥafṣ the Qurʾān-reciter.

He visited Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and Yazīd’s brother Hishām.

Abū ʿUbaydah remarked, “Had Banū Asad possessed no virtue other than al-Kumayt, he would have sufficed them; he endeared them to people and preserved their name for posterity.”

Abū ʿIkrimah al-Ḍabbī said, “Were it not for the poetry of al-Kumayt, the Arabic language would have had no spokesman.”

It is reported that al-Kumayt’s uncle was the chief of the Asad tribe. Al-Kumayt himself inclined toward the Shīʿah and praised ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, who gave him, from his own funds and those of Banū Hāshim, four hundred thousand (dirhams), saying, “Take this, Abā al-Mustahill.”

Al-Kumayt replied, “Had you honored me with a single dāniq, it would have been enough; rather, favor me with a garment that has touched your blessed body so I may seek blessing through it.” ʿAlī removed all his clothes, handed them to him, and prayed for him. Al-Kumayt would later say, “I have never ceased to feel the blessing of that supplication.”

Al-Mubarrad relates: When al-Kumayt was still a boy, he once stopped before al-Farazdaq while the latter was reciting poetry and said, “O…"