The Sixth Generation of the Followers (Tābiʿūn)
170 – Ibn Abī ʿArūbah, Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah Mihrān al-ʿAdawī*
The Imām, ḥāfiẓ (hadith master), and leading scholar of Basra—the first person to compile a book devoted to the Prophetic Sunan—he was Abū al-Naḍr ibn Mihrān al-ʿAdawī, their client, al-Baṣrī.
He transmitted from: al-Ḥasan, Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, Abū Rajāʾ al-ʿUṭāridī, al-Naḍr ibn Anas, ʿAbd Allāh al-Dānāj, Qatādah, Abū Naḍrah al-ʿAbdī, Maṭar al-Warrāq, and many others besides them.
He was an ocean of knowledge, although his memory declined when he grew old. The earliest shaykh from whom he narrated was Abū Rajāʾ.
Those who reported from him include: Shuʿbah, al-Thawrī, Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah, al-Naḍr ibn Shumayl, Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar Ghundar, Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl, Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir al-Ḍubaʿī, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Khaffāf—the transmitter of his books—Muḥammad ibn Bakr al-Bursānī, Yazīd ibn Hārūn, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī, and a host of others.
He was declared reliable by Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, al-Nasāʾī, and a number of other authorities.
Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ said: “I heard Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah say, ‘Whoever has not listened to the points of divergence, do not count him a scholar.’”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “Saʿīd possessed no book; he had memorised all of that.” And Yaḥyā said—