Ibn Ḥibbān said in his book al-Ḍuʿafāʾ: “I heard Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Shaykh al-Malṭī say:
‘Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn came to ʿAffān to hear from him the volumes of Ḥammād ibn Salamah. ʿAffān asked, “Have you not heard them from anyone else?” He replied, “Yes, seventeen people have narrated them to me from Ḥammād.” ʿAffān said, “By Allah, I will not relate them to you.”
Yaḥyā answered, “It is only a single dirham (1); I shall go down to Basra and hear them from al-Tabūdhakī.” ʿAffān said, “As you wish.”
So he travelled to Basra, came to al-Tabūdhakī, and asked him, “Have you not heard them from anyone else?” He replied, “I have heard them exactly as they are from seventeen narrators, and you will be the eighteenth.”
Yaḥyā said, “And what do you hope to achieve with this?” He answered, “Ḥammād ibn Salamah used to make mistakes, and I want to distinguish his errors from the errors of others. When I see his students unanimously agree on something, I know the error is his.”’
I say: This report is disconnected.
A ḥadith scholar also said, “I saw Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥaddād writing down the various narrations of Ḥammād ibn Salamah …,” and he recounted an anecdote.
169 – Ḥammād ibn Zayd ibn Dirham al-Azdī * (ʿ)
The erudite, the ḥāfiẓ, the firmly reliable authority, the leading ḥadith scholar of his time, Abū Ismāʿīl.
I know that another hadith is transmitted from Abu al-‘Ashra’ besides this one. Al-Bukhari commented: “There is a problem with his hadith, his very name, and the claim that he heard it from his father.” The report was recorded by Abu Dawud (no. 2825) in the Book of Sacrificial Animals, chapter “What is reported about slaughtering an animal that has fallen from a height,” by al-Tirmidhi (no. 1481), and by Ibn Majah (no. 3184) in the Book of Slaughtered Animals, chapter “The ritual slaughter (dhaka) of livestock that has strayed.” The term dhaka means ritual slaughter, and lubba refers to the middle of the chest and the throat.
(1) In the printed edition of al-Du‘afa’ 1/32 the word reads “wahm” (error), which is a slip of the pen; both manuscripts used by the editor correctly have “Dirham.”
(*) Ibn Sa‘d, Tabaqat, 7/286-287; Khalifa, Tabaqat, p. 224; Khalifa, Tarikh, pp. 321, 451; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 3/25; al-Tarikh al-Saghir, 2/218; Ibn Qutayba, al-Ma‘arif, pp. 502-503; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Ta‘dil, 1/176-183, 3/137-139; Ibn Hibban, Mashahir ‘Ulama al-Amsar, p. 157; Abu Nu‘aym, Hilyat al-Awliya’, 6/257-267; al-Nawawi, Tahdhib al-Asma’ wa-l-Lughat, 1/167-168; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, MS 328-329; al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, MS 1/173; al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 1/228-229; idem, ‘Ibar, 1/274; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 10/174; Ibn al-Jazari, Tabaqat al-Qurra’, 1/25; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 3/9-11; al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-Huffaz, pp. 96-97; al-Khazin, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 92; Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 1/292.