—hadiths in which he had erred on more than ten occasions.

Wakiʿ possessed eight hundred narrations from him, and Sufyan was the one who knew al-Aʿmash best.

Muhammad ibn Khalaf al-Taymi relates, on the authority of Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash:

“We used to call al-Aʿmash ‘the master of the hadith scholars.’ Whenever we had finished making the rounds of other teachers, we would come to him and he would ask, ‘With whom were you?’

We would reply, ‘With So-and-so,’ and he would say, ‘A torn drum!’

Then he would ask, ‘With whom were you?’
We would answer, ‘With So-and-so,’ and he would say, ‘A flighty bird!’

We would say, ‘With So-and-so,’ and he would remark, ‘A tambourine!’

He used to bring something out for us and we would eat it. One day we said to one another, ‘Whatever he brings out, you people eat it!’ So he brought something out and we ate it; then he brought out something else and we ate that too. He went inside and brought out a bowl of fateet (crumbled bread soaked in broth), and we drank it. He went inside again and came out with a kneading-trough full of chopped fodder, saying, ‘May Allah deal with you as you deserve! You have eaten my provisions and my wife’s provisions and drunk her fateet—this is the sheep’s feed!’

Abu Bakr said: ‘We then stayed away from him for thirty days, writing nothing from him out of fear, until we spoke to a perfumer who used to sit with him, and he interceded for us.’

Abu Khalid al-Ahmar said: Al-Aʿmash was once asked about a hadith, so he said to Ibn al-Mukhtar, ‘Do you see any of the hadith folk?’ He closed his eyes and said, ‘I see no one, Abu Muhammad,’ whereupon al-Aʿmash narrated it.

Al-Kawsaj transmitted from Ibn Maʿin that he said, ‘Al-Aʿmash is reliable.’

Al-Nasaʾi said, ‘Reliable and firmly established.’

Sharik narrated from al-Aʿmash that he said, ‘Ibrahim would not attribute a hadith to anyone except me, because he (1) admired me.’

Abu ʿAwanah and ʿAbd Allah ibn Dawud said: Al-Aʿmash died in the year 147 AH.