Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, or with Ibn Akhī al-Zuhrī, or with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dīnār. If he rejected Hammād’s ḥadīths because of the slips he sometimes made, then other scholars of his generation—such as al-Thawrī, Shuʿbah, and those below them—also erred. And if the claim is that Hammād’s mistakes multiplied when his memory declined, the same can be said of Abū Bakr. In Basra no one equalled Hammād, and none but a Muʿtazilī or a Jahmī ever spoke ill of him, precisely because he made the sound sunnah manifest. How could Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh ever approach Hammād ibn Salamah in precision, in the breadth of what he collected, in knowledge, or in accuracy?

Ḥammād ibn Zayd said: “We never saw anyone seeking knowledge with a sincere intention except Hammād ibn Salamah, and today we see no one teaching with a sincere intention but him.”

Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm related: I heard Hammād ibn Salamah say, “I used to ask Hammād ibn Abī Sulaymān about fully-attributed ḥadīths, while the people were asking him for his personal opinion. Whenever I came to him he would say, ‘May Allah not have brought you!’”

Abū Salamah al-Minqarī said: I heard Hammād ibn Salamah remark, “A man may become heavy until he becomes light.”

ʿAffān ibn Muslim reported: Ḥammād ibn Salamah told us, “I arrived in Mecca—ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ was still alive—during the month of Ramadan. I said, ‘When I break the fast, I will go in to see him,’ but he died in that very Ramadan.”

Shaykh al-Islām said in al-Fārūq (1): Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal declared, “If you see a man disparaging Hammād ibn Salamah, suspect him regarding his Islam, for Hammād was stern toward the innovators.”

Yūnus said, “I learned Arabic from Hammād ibn Salamah.”