He lived sixty-five years.
He was the champion horseman of the Abbasid family, their ever-drawn sword. Al-Saffāḥ designated him heir to the believers after al-Manṣūr. It was he who was commissioned to fight the two sons of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥasan; he captured them, they were killed, and by means of his victory the Abbasid state was stabilized.
Al-Manṣūr then employed every stratagem against him, postponing his succession and advancing al-Mahdī in his place. It is said that, after promises and threats, he offered him ten thousand thousand dirhams.
He died in 168 AH, in Kufa.
He left behind children, wealth, attendants, and considerable standing.

165 – Abū Maʿshar Najīḥ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sindī (4)
An Imām, hadith scholar, and author of al-Maghāzī; later he resided in Medina. A freedman of Banū Hāshim, he had first been a mukātib (contracted slave) to a woman of Banū Makhzūm. When he paid off the contract he was emancipated, whereupon the daughter of al-Manṣūr purchased his walāʾ (client-patron bond)—a transaction that is not permissible. Another report says she bought him outright and then freed him. Yet others claim that his lineage was Himyarī.
He met Abū Umāmah ibn Sahl ibn Ḥunāyf, who died in 100 AH.
He narrated from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb, Saʿīd al-Maqburī, Nāfiʿ al-ʿUmarī, Mūsā ibn Yasār, Ibn al-Munkadir, Abū Wahb the freedman of Abū Hurayrah, Muḥammad ibn Qays the storyteller, Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr, Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, and a number of others.
And it was said that he transmitted—