38 – Hamzah ibn Ḥabib ibn ʿAmarah al-Taymī * (M, 4)

The son of Ismāʿīl, the Imām, the exemplar, the master of Qurʾānic recitation, Abū ʿAmārah al-Taymī—their freedman—of Kūfah, the oil-merchant, freedman of ʿIkrimah ibn Ribʿī.

Those who recited the Qurʾān before him included Ḥumrān ibn Aʿyan, al-Aʿmash, Ibn Abī Laylā, and a group besides them.

He transmitted hadith from ʿAdiyy ibn Thābit, al-Ḥakam, ʿAmr ibn Murrah, Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit, Ṭalḥah ibn Muṣarrif, Manṣūr, and others.

I have found no narration of his from al-Shaʿbī.

A large number learned the Qurʾān from him: Sulaym ibn ʿĪsā, al-Kisāʾī, ʿĀbid ibn Abī ʿĀbid, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAṭiyyah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ al-ʿIjli, and many more.

Among those who narrated from him are al-Thawrī, Sharīk, Jarīr, Ibn Fuḍayl, Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, Bakr ibn Bakkār, Ḥusayn al-Juʿfī, Qabīṣah, and a host of others.

He used to carry oil from Kūfah to Ḥulwān and bring back from there cheese and walnuts. He was an upright Imām in the Book of Allah, devout to Him, deeply scrupulous, of lofty repute, and knowledgeable in hadith and the laws of inheritance. His lineage was Persian.

Al-Thawrī said, “Hamzah never recited a single letter except on the basis of evidence.”

Aswad ibn Sālim said, “I asked al-Kisāʾī about the treatment of the hamzah and about assimilation (idghām): ‘Do you (pl.) have regarding that…’”