Al-Hudhali says in his Kāmil (1): “Nāfiʿ lived to an advanced age. He began teaching the Qur’an to people in the year 95 AH”—so claims al-Hudhali—“yet it is hardly conceivable that Nāfiʿ at that point was already an established instructor; rather, he was still receiving the text and frequenting those who coached him. In fact, he only assumed the chair of instruction after a long interval, and it is more likely that he started teaching around the year 120 AH, while his senior teachers were still alive.”

Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—said, “Nāfiʿ is the imām of the people in recitation.”

Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr related: “I heard Mālik say, ‘The reading of Nāfiʿ is sunnah.’”

Isḥāq al-Musayyibī transmitted from Nāfiʿ that he said: “I met a number of the Successors. I looked at whatever two of them agreed upon and adopted it, and whatever only one of them held I left aside, until I composed this mode of recitation.”

It is also reported that whenever Nāfiʿ spoke a scent of musk issued from his mouth. Asked about it, he replied, “I saw the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in a dream, and he spat into my mouth.”

Al-Layth ibn Saʿd said, “I performed the pilgrimage in 113 AH, and the imām of the people in recitation at Madinah was Nāfiʿ ibn Abī Nuʿaym.”

I (the author) say: There is no doubt that the man was already a leading authority during the lifetime of his own teachers. He also narrated from Nāfiʿ the client of Ibn ʿUmar, from al-Aʿraj, from ʿĀmir ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr, and from Abū al-Zinād—yet he is not among the champions of hadith.

Those who read the Qur’an to him include Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar, Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad al-Musayyibī, ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd (Warsh), and ʿĪsā (Qālūn). (2)

Among those who transmitted from him are al-Qaʿnabī, Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam, Khālid ibn Makhlad, Marwān ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭāṭarī, and Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways.

Ibn Maʿīn declared him reliable. Abū Ḥātim said, “He is truthful,” and al-Nasāʾī said, “There is nothing objectionable about him.”