the session of Shuʿbah. He said, “Abu Muʿāwiyah, did you hear such-and-such a report from al-Aʿmash?”
He replied, “Yes.”
Shuʿbah then announced, “This man is the close companion of al-Aʿmash—recognise him.”

Abu Zurʿah al-Dimashqī said, “I heard Abū Nuʿaym state: ‘Abu Muʿāwiyah remained with al-Aʿmash for twenty years.’”

Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar al-Wakīʿī said, “Among all the people we met, no one knew al-Aʿmash’s ḥadiths better than Abu Muʿāwiyah.”

Aḥmad ibn Dāwud al-Ḥarrānī said, “I heard Abu Muʿāwiyah say: ‘Even the sighted scholars depended on me when it came to al-Aʿmash’s narrations.’”

Ibn ʿAmmār related that he heard Abu Muʿāwiyah say:
“Every ḥadith for which I preface my report with ‘ḥaddathanā’ (he narrated to us) is something I memorised verbatim from the speaker’s own mouth. Whenever I say ‘so-and-so mentioned,’ that is a report I did not take directly from him; rather, it was read to him from a book, and I memorised and recognised it.”

Al-ʿIjlī said, “He is a Kufan, reliable, but he espoused irjāʾ (1); the censure levelled against him is mild.”

Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah said, “Trustworthy, though he occasionally practised tadlīs; he held to irjāʾ, and it is said that Wakīʿ did not attend his funeral on that account.”

Abu Dāwud said, “He was the head of the Murjiʾah in Kūfah.”

Al-Nasāʾī said, “Reliable.”

Ibn Khirāsh said, “Truthful; as regards reports from al-Aʿmash he is reliable, but in other narrations he shows some inconsistency.”