ibn ʿĀmir has been the senior scholar of the city for forty years.1
Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī said, “I truly envy the neighbors of Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir.”
Ziyād ibn Ayyūb declared, “I have never seen in Basra anyone like Saʿīd al-Ḍubaʿī,” and Aḥmad ibn al-Furāt said the same.2
Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn remarked, “Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir, the reliable, the trustworthy, narrated to us.”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “I have not seen anyone superior to him—and to Ḥusayn al-Juʿfī.”
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī commented, “Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir was a righteous, truthful man, though there are a few mistakes in his hadith.”3
Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb stated, “Among those who transmitted from him were ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak and Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Mundhir al-Qazzāz; there are one hundred and nine years between their deaths.”
I say: al-Qazzāz died in 290 AH.
Abū Ḥātim al-Bustī said, “Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir died with four days remaining in Shawwāl of 208 AH, at the age of eighty-six.”
One of his high-isnād narrations is found in the al-Ghaylāniyyāt: Aḥmad ibn Salāmah informed us—by authorization—from Khalīl ibn Badr and Masʿūd al-Khayyāṭ, who said: Abū ʿAlī al-Muqriʾ informed us, Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ informed us, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Haytham narrated to us, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrated to us, Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir narrated to us, Shubayl ibn ʿAzrah