Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah said: “Yazīd died in Wāsiṭ, in the month of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, in the year 206 AH.”
I comment: His narrations are found with a high isnād in al-Ghaylāniyyāt (1); among them is the famous report, “Actions are judged by intentions.” His ḥadiths are also exceedingly numerous in the Musnad of Aḥmad, in the Six Canonical Books, and in many other collections.
Abū ʿUbayd al-Ājurrī said: I heard Abū Dāwūd say that he heard Aḥmad ibn Sinān state, “Yazīd had an intense aversion to the Qur’anic recitation of Ḥamzah” (2).
Al-Mizzī said: Yazīd ibn Hārūn ibn Zādhī—some say Zādhān ibn Thābit—his grandfather was a client of Umm ʿĀṣim, the wife of ʿUtbah ibn Farqad, and she manumitted him.
It was said that his origin was from Bukhārā.
He transmitted ḥadith from: Abān ibn Abī ʿAyyāsh, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, Ismāʿīl ibn Muslim al-Makkī, Ashʿath ibn Sawwār, Aṣbagh ibn Zayd, Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah, Ḥajjāj ibn Abī Zaynab, Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim, and ʿAwf
(1) Al-Ghaylaniyat is an eleven-part collection of traditions extracted by al-Daraqutni from the hadiths of Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Ibrahim al-Baghdadi al-Shafi‘i al-Bazzar (d. 354 H/965 CE). It corresponds to the portion actually heard by Abu Talib Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ghaylan al-Bazzar (d. 404 H/1014 CE) from that same Abu Bakr. The work is considered to contain some of the loftiest and most reliable hadiths.
(2) A similar judgment is reported from Imam Ahmad. Ibn Qudama writes in al-Mughni, 1/492: “He objected to none of the ten canonical readings except those of Hamza and al-Kisai, because they involve excessive breaking, assimilation (idgham), affectation, and over-elongation (mad).” Al-Athram asked him: “If an imam leads the prayer using Hamza’s reading, may I pray behind him?” He replied: “It is not so serious, yet I do not like Hamza’s recitation.” Ibn al-Jazari comments in Tabaqat al-Qurra, 1/263: “This must refer to the recitation of someone who claimed to have heard it from Hamza; the real flaw in reports lies in their transmitters. Several chains relate that Hamza himself used to say to anyone who exaggerated in prolongation or in the glottal stop (hamz): ‘Do not do that. Do you not know that anything beyond normal whiteness is vitiligo, anything beyond natural curliness is kinky hair, and anything beyond proper recitation is no recitation.’”