131 – Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh ibn Sālim al-Asadī (Kh, 4)

The Kufan, known as al-Hannāt—with a nūn—the Qur’an reciter, jurist, and hadith scholar; Shaykh al-Islam and the last of the eminent authorities, a client of Wāṣil al-Aḥdab.

There is a range of opinions about his given name. The view best known is that reported by Shuʿbah, for Abū Hāshim al-Rifāʿī and Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Awwal once asked him his name. Shuʿbah added that Yaḥyā ibn Ādam and others had also put the question to him, and he replied, “My kunyah is my name.”

Al-Nasāʾī held that his name was Muḥammad.

It has also been said that it was Muṭarrif;
that it was Ruʾbah;
that it was ʿAtīq;
that it was Sālim;
indeed, some have mentioned Aḥmad, ʿAntarah, Qāsim, Ḥusayn, ʿAṭāʾ, Ḥammād, or ʿAbd Allāh.

Hārūn ibn Ḥātim said, “I heard him say, ‘I was born in the year 95 AH.’ ”

Abu Bakr studied the Qur’an with ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Nujūd, perfecting it three complete times. According to what has reached us, he also presented his recitation to ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib and Aslam al-Minqarī.

He narrated hadith from ʿĀṣim, Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr, Ismāʿīl al-Suddī, and Ṣāliḥ—the freedman of ʿAmr ibn Ḥurayth; he related it from: