Among those who narrated from him were Muḥammad ibn Muṣaffā, Khaṭṭāb ibn ʿUthmān, Hishām ibn ʿAmmār, Kathīr ibn ʿUbayd, Aḥmad ibn al-Faraj al-Ḥijāzī, and others.
Of his own teachers, Ibn Lahīʿah also transmitted from him, yet Ibn Lahīʿah died some ninety-odd years before al-Ḥijāzī.
Yahyā ibn Maʿīn and Duḥaym declared him reliable, and al-Nasāʾī said, “There is no objection to him.” Abū Ḥātim remarked, “He is not to be taken as proof; Baqiyyah is dearer to me than he is.” ⦗1⦘ Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī said, “He is not strong.” ⦗2⦘
I say: He is not of the highest authority; his narrations are counted among the ḥasan reports. He stands alone in transmitting a number of ḥadiths, among them the one recorded by Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ, from Muḥammad ibn Ziyād, from Abū Umāmah, tracing back to the Prophet ﷺ:
“Whoever recites Ayat al-Kursī after every prescribed prayer, nothing stands between him and entering Paradise except death.” ⦗3⦘
He died in Ṣafar of the year 200 AH.
(1) Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa al-Taʿdil, vol. 7, p. 240.
(2) Yaʿqub al-Fasawi, al-Maʿrifah wa al-Tarikh, vol. 2, p. 309.
(3) Muhammad b. Humayr is described by the hadith master Ibn Hajar in al-Taqrib as saduq (reliable); a narrator of this rank produces a hasan (acceptable) report. The remaining transmitters are also trustworthy. Al-Nasaʾi included the hadith in al-Sunan al-Kubra—as cited in Zad al-Maʿad—through the chain of al-Husayn b. Bishr from Muhammad b. Humayr.
Al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabir (no. 7532) through the same transmitter, and al-Mundhiri mentions it in al-Targhib wa-l-Tarhib, 2/453, noting that it is related by al-Nasaʾi and al-Tabarani with several isnads, one of which is sahih. Our teacher Abu al-Hasan adds that the chain meets the criteria of al-Bukhari. Ibn Hibban placed it in his Book of Prayer and declared it authentic. Some of al-Tabarani’s routes add the phrase “and Qul huwa Allahu ahad”; the isnad for this addition is likewise sound. Al-Haythami states in Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 10/102, that al-Tabarani narrated it in both al-Kabir and al-Awsat with several chains, at least one of which is good. Similar reports exist from al-Mughira b. Shuʿbah—cited by Abu Nuʿaym in Hilyat al-Awliyaʾ, 2/221, with a hasan chain—and from al-Hasan b. ʿAli in al-Tabarani’s al-Kabir, graded hasan by al-Mundhiri and al-Haythami (2/148).