was the tutor of Ibn Shihāb. More than once Ṣāliḥ would mention some point, whereupon Ibn Shihāb would reject it and say, “So-and-so has narrated to us, and so-and-so has narrated to us the very opposite of what you have stated.” Ṣāliḥ would retort, “You argue with me when it was I who straightened the crookedness of your tongue!”

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Uwaysī said: “I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd relate: I went to visit Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān at his house and found him breaking pieces of bread for a cat he owned and feeding it; then he crumbled bread for some pigeons of his—or for a flock of pigeons—and fed them as well.”

Al-Ḥākim slipped twice in a single sentence when he said: “Zayd ibn Abī Unaysa died at the age of thirty, and Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān at a little over one hundred and sixty. Ṣāliḥ met a group of the Companions, then later became a disciple of al-Zuhrī, receiving knowledge from him at the age of ninety, having begun to seek knowledge when he was seventy.”

The correct answer is that Zayd died in middle age, in his forties or thereabouts, and that Ṣāliḥ lived a little over eighty years—he never reached ninety. Had he lived as Abū ʿAbd Allāh (al-Ḥākim) alleges, he would have been counted among the younger Companions, for he was a Medinan and would have been in his mid-thirties when the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—passed away. Moreover, if, as al-Ḥākim claims, he had begun his pursuit of knowledge at seventy, he would have had to live another ninety-plus years thereafter and would have heard directly from Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ and ʿĀʾishah—so the claim collapses.

Al-Wāqidī said: “Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān died sometime after 140 AH and before the rising of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan. He was reliable and narrated a large number of hadith.”

204 – Ziyād ibn Abī Ziyād, freedman of Ibn ʿAyyāsh * (M, T, Q)
He is the jurist, the devout scholar, Ziyād ibn Abī Ziyād, freedman of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAyyāsh ibn Abī