146 – Thawr ibn Yazid, Abū Yazid al-Kalāʿī * (Kh, 4)

He was a ḥadith scholar, jurist, and the foremost scholar of Ḥimṣ, known as Abū Yazid al-Kalāʿī, the Ḥimṣī.

Among those from whom he narrated were: Khālid ibn Maʿdān, Rāshid ibn Saʿd, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, Ḥabīb ibn ʿUbayd, Nāfiʿ, al-Zuhrī, and ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, along with many others. He was one of the great reservoirs of knowledge, were it not for the innovation he held.

Those who transmitted from him include: Ibn Isḥāq—his close companion—Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Muʿāfā ibn ʿImrān, Ibn al-Mubārak, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd, Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith, Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl, and a number of others.

His reports appear in al-Bukhārī through high-level chains. He was a careful, reliable ḥāfiẓ, to the point that Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān said, “I never met a Syrian more trustworthy than Thawr; I used to write from him in Mecca on wooden tablets.”

Wakīʿ said, “Thawr was the most devout person I have ever seen.”

ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus remarked, “Thawr was among the firmest in accuracy.”

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and others declared, “Trustworthy.”

Ibn ʿAdī said, “The critics deemed him reliable, and I do not regard his narrations as objectionable. He has about two hundred ḥadiths in the Musnad, and I have not found anything more problematic among them than what I have already mentioned.”

Abū Ḥātim said, “Truthful, a ḥāfiẓ.”

Abū Tawbah al-Ḥalabī related: “Our companions informed us that Thawr met al-Awzāʿī. Thawr extended his hand to greet him, but al-Awzāʿī refused to extend his own and said, ‘O Thawr, if this world were (worth anything), it would have been…’”