—al-Ghassānī, the Ḥimṣī, the leading shaykh of Ḥimṣ.

He was born during the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik, while Abū Umāmah was still alive.

He narrated from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, Rāshid ibn Saʿd, Bilāl ibn Abī al-Dardāʾ, Makḥūl, Abū Rāshid al-Ḥubrānī, Ḍamrah ibn Ḥabīb, Ḥakīm ibn ʿUmayr, Ḥabīb ibn ʿUbayd, Muḥammad ibn Ziyād, and many others.

Those who transmitted from him include Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, Baqiyyah, Ibn al-Mubārak, al-Walīd, Abū al-Yamān, ʿAlī ibn ʿAyyāsh, Abū al-Mughīrah, and others.

Abū al-Yamān said, “His personal name is Bakr; it appears that his given name and his kunyah are identical.”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and others considered him weak because of his poor retention.

Abū Isḥāq al-Jūzajānī said, “He is passable.”

Ibn ʿAdī remarked, “His reports are acceptable, yet they are not relied upon as proof.”

Ibn Ḥibbān stated, “He has a faulty memory: he narrates something, then errs and overstates, to the point that he deserves to be abandoned. I have never heard any of our colleagues mention a personal name for him.”

Yazīd ibn Hārūn said, “He was among the devoted worshippers who exerted themselves.”

Baqiyyah related: “A man from the village of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Maryam—which is rich in olive trees—told us, ‘There is not a single tree in this village except that Abū Bakr spent an entire night in prayer beneath it.’”

It was also said that marks left by tears were visible on his cheeks—may Allah have mercy on him.

Yazīd ibn ʿAbd Rabbih said: “He died in 156 AH.”

Some of his higher-level isnāds appear in the Juzʾ of Ibn ʿArafah and in al-Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam, yet his ḥadīths do not rise to the grade of fair.