and Abū Muʿāwiyah, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs, ʿAlī ibn Mus-hir, Wakīʿ, Abū Usāmah, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Aḥmad ibn Bashīr, Isḥāq ibn Yūsuf al-Azraq, Saʿd ibn al-Ṣalt, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Maghrāʾ, ʿAththām ibn ʿAlī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Umawī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Yūnus ibn Bukayr, Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn, al-Khuraibī, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā, Abū Nuʿaym al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn, and many others. The last of them to die was Yaḥyā ibn Hāshim al-Simsār—one of the talfā.
He recited the Quran to Yaḥyā ibn Waththāb, the leading reciter of Iraq. Some say he also read to Abū l-ʿĀliyah al-Riyāḥī, and that is perfectly possible. Hamzah al-Zayyāt and Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah recited to him, and al-Kisāʾī learned from Zāʾidah in accordance with al-Aʿmash’s readings.
ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said, “He has around 1,300 hadiths.” Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah remarked, “Al-Aʿmash was the most proficient among them in the Book of Allah, the strongest in memorizing hadith, and the most knowledgeable in the laws of inheritance.” Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān said, “He is a luminary of Islam.” Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarraḥ said, “For nearly seventy years al-Aʿmash never missed the opening takbīr.” ʿAbd Allāh al-Khuraibī stated, “Al-Aʿmash left behind no one more devoted than he.”
Ibn ʿUyaynah related, “I saw al-Aʿmash wearing a fur coat turned inside out and a coarse garment whose threads trailed over his legs. Then he said, ‘Consider this—had I not pursued knowledge, who would visit me if I were a grocer? People would come only to make their purchases and leave.’”
Abū Nuʿaym said, “I heard al-Aʿmash say, ‘They used to recite to Yaḥyā ibn Waththāb; when he died, they closed in around me.’” Abū Usāmah reported that al-Aʿmash said, “Whenever you keep circling someone with demands, you eventually force him to lie.”
Al-Ashajj narrated: Ḥumayd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān told us, from al-Aʿmash, who said, “Mālik ibn al-Ḥārith sought my help in a certain matter, so I came wearing a torn cloak, and he said to me, ‘Had you only put on a different garment…’”