112 – ʿAmr ibn Qays al-Kūfī al-Mulāʾī, the cloth-dealer * (M, 4)
A ḥāfiẓ, counted among Allah’s awliyāʾ (close servants).

He narrated from ʿIkrima, al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtayba, ʿAṭāʾ, Muṣʿab ibn Saʿd, ʿAṭiyya al-ʿAwfī, and Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī; he was not among the prolific transmitters.

Those who transmitted from him include Sufyān al-Thawrī—who kept his company for a time—Abū Khālid al-Aḥmar, al-Muḥāribī, Saʿd ibn al-Ṣalt, Asbāṭ ibn Muḥammad, ʿUmar ibn Shabīb al-Muslī, and others.

Abū Zurʿa said: “Reliable, trustworthy.”
Al-Thawrī mentioned him and praised him.

Jaʿfar ibn Kuzāl related: Muḥammad ibn Bishr told us, al-Muḥāribī told us, that al-Thawrī said to me:
“ʿAmr ibn Qays is the one who refined my character; he taught me the recitation of the Quran and the laws of inheritance. I would look for him in his stall at the marketplace; if I could not find him there, then at his house—either he would be praying or reading from the muṣḥaf, as though he were racing against something that might elude him. If I still did not find him, I would see him in a mosque, seated and weeping; or in the cemetery, lamenting over his own soul.”

When he died, the people of Kūfa shut their doors and came out with his bier. When they had carried him to the hills and emerged with his coffin—and he had stipulated that Abū Ḥayyān al-Taymī should lead the prayer—Abū Ḥayyān stepped forward and pronounced four takbīrs over him. They then heard a voice calling: “The benefactor has arrived! The benefactor ʿAmr ibn Qays has arrived!” Suddenly the countryside was filled with white birds whose form and beauty had never been seen before, and the people were astonished.

Abū Ḥayyān said, “What amazes you? These are angels who have come to bear witness for ʿAmr.”