Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn Masrūq said: Ayūb al-ʿAṭṭār narrated to us: I heard Bishr ibn al-Ḥārith—may Allah have mercy on him—say, “Ḥammād ibn Zayd narrated to us.” He then added, “I seek Allah’s forgiveness; simply reciting the chain of transmission breeds conceit in the heart.”
Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb related from Ḥammād ibn Zayd: “Abān ibn Abī ʿAyyāsh came to me and said, ‘I would like you to speak to Shuʿbah so that he will stop attacking me.’ I spoke to him, and he desisted for a few days; then he came to me at night and said, ‘It is not lawful to stop warning against Abān, for he lies against the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.’ ”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim the ḥāfiẓ said: My father narrated to us—Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb narrated to us—that he heard Ḥammād ibn Zayd say, “All that they revolve around is to end up declaring, ‘There is no god in the heaven’—meaning the Jahmiyyah (1).”
Abū al-Nuʿmān ʿĀrim related that Ḥammād ibn Zayd said, “The Quran is the speech of Allah; Gabriel brought it down from the Lord of all worlds.”
I say: I know of no disagreement among the scholars that Ḥammād ibn Zayd was one of the leading Imams of the Salaf—among the most precise, upright, and least prone to error of the hadith masters, despite the vast number of narrations he transmitted—may Allah have mercy on him.
He was born in the year 98 AH.
Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd al-Jawharī said: I heard Abū Usāmah remark, “Whenever I looked at Ḥammād ibn Zayd I would say, ‘Khosrow polished his manners, and ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—taught him jurisprudence.’ ”
Al-Khalīlī said: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad the ḥāfiẓ say, “I heard Abū ʿUbayd Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, the nephew of Hilāl al-Raʾy, say: I heard Hishām ibn ʿAlī say, ‘People used to say: The knowledge of Ḥammād ibn Salamah was worth four danīqs (2), but his intellect only two; whereas the knowledge of Ḥammād ibn Zayd was worth two danīqs, yet his intellect four.’ ”
I say: He died in the year 179 AH, and the authorities agree that it was during the month of Ramadan. Abū