- Muʿāwiyah ibn Sallām, the Ethiopian, the Arab, the Syrian.
He was the son of the Imām Abū Sallām Mamṭūr, likewise Ethiopian, Arab, and Syrian.
He transmitted hadith from his father and from his brother Zayd, and—according to some—he also met his grandfather.
He further narrated from al-Zuhrī and Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr.
Among those who reported from him are: Abū Mushir, Marwān ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭāṭarī, Yahyā ibn Ḥassān, Yahyā al-Wuḥāẓī, Yahyā ibn Yahyā al-Naysābūrī, Yahyā ibn Bishr al-Ḥarīrī, Abū Tawbah al-Ḥalabī, and others. He used to reside in Ḥimṣ and in Damascus.
Al-Nasāʾī and other critics declared him reliable, and he was counted among the leading scholars of religion.
Yahyā ibn Maʿīn said, “I consider him the foremost hadith scholar of Syria in his day.”
In the recension of Abū Mushir we read: “Muʿāwiyah ibn Sallām narrated to us, ‘I heard my grandfather Abū Sallām…,’” and then he cited a mursal report.
Abū Mushir said, “I asked him, ‘To whom does your walāʾ belong?’ He became upset—meaning that he was of Arab lineage.”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “He is reliable.”
It is also reported that Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr received from Muʿāwiyah ibn Sallām, by munāwala, his grandfather’s book. (1)
He died sometime after 170 AH.