—of the Prophet—and likewise from Kuraib, Abū Salama, Busr ibn Saʿīd, Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Sammān, ʿAfīf ibn ʿAmr al-Sahmī, al-Mundhir ibn al-Mughīrah, ʿIrāk ibn Mālik, Nāfiʿ al-ʿUmarī, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥāṭib, Abū Burdah ibn Abī Mūsā, and a host of others.
He even went so far as to take hadith from Yazīd ibn Abī ʿUbayd and Suhayl ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ, and he was counted among the great imams of Islam.
Among those who transmitted from him are: Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb, Ayyūb ibn Mūsā, Ibn ʿAjlān, Ibn Isḥāq, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar, Bakr ibn ʿAmr al-Maʿāfirī, a number of the senior scholars of his own generation and others besides them, his son Makhramah, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb, al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān, Ibn Luhayʿah, and many more.
Ibn Wahb said, “Whenever Mālik mentioned Bukayr he would say, ‘He was one of the scholars.’”
Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn al-Ṭabbāʿ reported: “I heard Maʿn ibn ʿĪsā say, ‘No one ought to surpass or excel Bukayr ibn al-Ashajj in hadith.’”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “Reliable, righteous.”
Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and others likewise declared, “Reliable.”
Abū l-Ḥasan ibn al-Barāʾ remarked, “After the senior Successors, no one in Medina was more knowledgeable than Ibn Shihāb, Bukayr ibn al-Ashajj, and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd.”
Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIjlī said, “Reliable, a Madinan. Mālik did not hear anything from him. He travelled to Egypt in earlier times and settled there.”
Al-Nasāʾī said, “Reliable, firmly grounded.”
Al-Wāqidī and Ibn Numayr stated that he died in 127 AH.
Abū Ḥafṣ al-Fallās said that he died in 122 AH.
I (the author) say: Rather, that latter date is the year in which his brother Yaʿqūb died. A number of people have confused this Bukayr ibn ʿAbd Allāh with Bukayr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭāʾī al-Kūfī.
He is also known as Bukayr ibn Abī ʿAbd Allāh.