- Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd ibn Abān ibn Saʿīd al-Umawī
son of al-ʿĀṣ ibn Abī Uhaysha Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayyah ibn ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Quṣayy.
He was an imām, a ḥadīth specialist, reliable and distinguished. His kunya was Abū Ayyūb; he was a Qurashi Umayyad from Kūfa.
He had several brothers.
He is the father of Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā al-Umawī, the author of al-Maghāzī.
He was born in the early teen-hundreds, that is, around 113 AH.
He narrated from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī, Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, Yazīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Burdah, al-Aʿmash, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, Sufyān al-Thawrī, and many others.
He acquired the material on the Prophet’s campaigns (al-Maghāzī) from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq.
Among those who transmitted from him are Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Suraij ibn Yūnus, his son Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā, Ḥumayd ibn al-Rabīʿ, and a large number of others.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “He possesses some singular reports from al-Aʿmash, and there is nothing objectionable about him.”
(…) In his Musnad, the author states: “Hafs b. Abd Allah Abu Umar al-Hulawani related to us; Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad al-Muharibi related to us,” and then gives the report with an additional wording. A corroborating version comes from Abu Hurayra, transmitted by Muslim, al-Nasaʾi and Ibn Majah, and another from Abu Marthad al-Ghanawi, recorded by Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasaʾi.
(*) Ibn Maʿin, Tarikh, no. 644; Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat, 7/339; al-Bukhari, Tarikh al-Kabir, 8/277, and Tarikh al-Saghir, 2/275; Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿarif, p. 514; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 9/151; Ibn Hibban, Mashahir ʿUlamaʾ al-Amsar, no. 1391; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 14/132, 135; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, no. 1498; al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 4/154/2; al-Dhahabi, al-ʿIbar, 1/315; al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 1/325; al-Dhahabi, al-Kashif, 3/256; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 11/213; Ibn Hajar, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 423; Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 1/341.