38 – ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Najīḥ Yasār, Abū Yasār al-Thaqafī * (ʿ)
A leading, trustworthy imam and Qurʾānic exegete, Abū Yasār al-Thaqafī, the Meccan.
His father’s name was Yasār, a freedman of the Companion al-Akhnas ibn Shurayq.

He transmitted from: Mujāhid, Tāwūs, ʿAṭāʾ, and others of their rank.
I have found no report of his being directly linked to any Companion.

Transmitters from him include: Shuʿbah, Sufyān al-Thawrī, ʿAbd al-Wārith, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Ibn ʿUlayyah, and many others.

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and other critics judged him reliable, though he adopted the Qadari doctrine concerning predestination.

Ibn ʿUyaynah said: “He was the muftī of the people of Mecca after ʿAmr ibn Dīnār.”

He was handsome, eloquent, and fine-featured, and he never married at all (1).

Yaḥyā ibn al-Qaṭṭān said: “He was a Muʿtazilite.”

Yaʿqūb al-Sudsūsī said: “He is trustworthy, but a Qadari.”

Al-Bukhārī related: “Al-Faḍl ibn Muqātil told us, ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Kaysān told us: Ibn Abī Najīḥ spent thirty years without uttering a single word that would hurt the person sitting with him.”