They said: al-Aʿmash died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 148 AH, in Kūfa.
In that same year there also died: the senior scholar of Medina, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq; the chief jurist of Egypt, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith; the shaykh of Ḥimṣ, Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd al-Zubaydī; the shaykh of Wāsiṭ, al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab; and Kūfa’s judge and muftī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā.
I read this report to al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, who informed us that Sālim ibn al-Ḥasan had informed him, Naṣr Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān had informed us, Abū Saʿīd (1) ibn Khushaysh had informed us, Abū ʿAlī ibn Shādhān had informed us, ʿUthmān ibn Aḥmad had informed us, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Munādī narrated to us, and Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth narrated to us, saying:
“I and a companion of mine went to al-Aʿmash to listen to him. He came out to us wearing a fur cloak turned inside-out, his head pulled inside it, and said:
‘Have you learnt dignified bearing? Have you learnt proper speech? By Allah, those who have gone before were not like this.’
He then slammed the door—or he said, ‘Girl, close the door!’ Then—"
(=) Chain of transmission: Abu Usamah and Abu Yahya al-Hamanī, both from al-Aʿmash. Al-Aʿmash said: Anas recited, “inna nashiʾata al-layl hiya ashaddu waṭʾan wa aswabu qīlan” (Q 73:6: “Surely the vigil of the night is more forcible and more correct in speech”). Some of those present said to him, “Abu Ḥamzah, the wording is only: wa aqwamu.” He replied, “aqwamu, aswabu and ahdā are one and the same.”
Al-Haythamī records the report in Majmaʿ 7/156, attributing it to al-Bazzār and to Abū Yaʿlā. He notes that al-Aʿmash did not say “I heard Anas,” yet the transmitters in Abū Yaʿlā’s isnād are the men of the Ṣaḥīḥ, and those in al-Bazzār’s chain are trustworthy.
Al-Qurṭubī quotes in his Tafsīr 9/41 the judgment of Abū Bakr al-Anbārī: “This ḥadīth is not sound according to any scholar, because it rests on al-Aʿmash; it is muqṭaʿ (broken) and therefore not connected, for al-Aʿmash merely saw Anas, he did not hear from him.” Even if we concede its authenticity and that al-Aʿmash did hear from Anas, it remains possible—as stated in Nukat al-Intiṣār 1/225—that Anas, perceiving that the critic thought his slip grave and was reproaching him, replied that the point is not decisive and that aswabu, aqwamu and ahdā are equivalent. Yet he would not have allowed the verse to be recited except with aqwamu, for Qurʾānic recitation is an act of worship and differs from a lapse that replaces the Qurʾān with wording that fails to convey its meaning. And if we go so far as to say that Anas actually permitted the alternative, this would be an isolated opinion, unsupported by others, and thus a shādh (anomalous) reading that ought to be set aside.
(1) In Ibn Nuqṭah’s Istidrāk he is identified as Abū Asʿad Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Khushaysh, as cited by al-Muʿallimī al-Yamānī in his notes on al-Ikmāl 3/152.