from Thamūd. While he was within this sanctuary he was protected, but once he left it the very punishment that had overtaken his people befell him here, and he was buried on this spot. A sign of that is that a branch of gold was buried with him; if you were to exhume him, you would find it still there with him.’
The people rushed to the grave and extracted the branch.
It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd (1) through the route of Yaḥyā.
168 – Abū ʿUbaydah Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā al-Taymī, their manumitted client *
The imām, the erudite scholar, an ocean of knowledge—Abū ʿUbaydah Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā al-Taymī, the Baṣran philologist and prolific author.
Born: in the year 110 AH, on the very night al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī died.
He studied under Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, Ruʾbah ibn al-ʿAjjāj, Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, and several others.
He was not a ḥadith specialist; I mention him only because of the breadth of his expertise in the Arabic language and the history of the Arabs.
Those who narrated from him include ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, and Abū