and the personal name of Abū Dhīʾb was Hishām ibn Shuʿbah.
He was the Imām, Shaykh al-Islām, Abū al-Ḥārith al-Qurashī al-ʿĀmirī, the Medinan jurist.
He heard (hadith) from ʿIkrimah, Shuraḥbīl ibn Saʿd, Saʿīd al-Maqburī, Nāfiʿ al-ʿUmari, Usayd ibn Abī Usayd al-Barrād, Ṣāliḥ the freedman of al-Tawʾama, Shuʿbah the freedman of Ibn ʿAbbās, his maternal uncle al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qurashī, Muslim ibn Jundub, Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbbās, Muḥammad ibn Qays, Isḥāq ibn Yazīd al-Hudhalī, al-Zibraqān ibn ʿAmr ibn Umayya al-Ḍamrī, Saʿīd ibn Samʿān, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Surāqa, Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir, Yazīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qusayṭ, and many others besides them.
He was one of the vessels of knowledge—trustworthy, upright, a champion of the truth, and held in reverence.
Among those who transmitted from him were Ibn al-Mubārak, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Ibn Abī Fudayk, Shabābah ibn Sawwār, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥanafī, Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad, Abū Nuʿaym, Wakīʿ, Ādam ibn Abī Iyās, al-Qaʿnabī, Asad ibn Mūsā, ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAlī, Aḥmad ibn Yūnus al-Yarbūʿī, ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd, Ibn Wahb, al-Muqriʾ, and a great many others.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “He was likened to Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib.” Someone asked him, “Did he leave anyone comparable to himself?” He replied, “No.” He then remarked, “He was superior to Mālik, except that Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—was more rigorous in scrutinizing narrators.”
I say: he met the senior scholars earlier than Mālik did, but Mālik’s range in knowledge, legal verdicts, hadith transmission, and precision was far broader.
Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī said, “He was born in the year 80 AH.”
He was among the most scrupulous and even-tempered of people (1).
He was accused of being a Qadarī, though he was not; indeed, he shunned their doctrine and censured it,