al-Walīd ibn Bakr al-ʿUmarī said, “ʿAmr ibn Abī Salamah was among the foremost authorities on narrative reports, on a par with Ibn Wahb; he would select from the opinions of Mālik and al-Awzāʿī.”
I say: His ḥadith are recorded in the Six Books, and a number of scholars deemed him reliable, while only Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn graded him weak. (1)
He died in 214 AH, though it is also said that his death occurred in 213.
53 – Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-Muhallab ibn ʿAmr al-Azdī * (ʿ)
The Imām, ḥadith master, and truthful authority, Abū ʿAmr al-Azdī, al-Maʿnī (2), the Baghdadi.
He narrated from Isrāʾīl, Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim, Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Masʿūdī, Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq, and others of their rank.
Among those who transmitted from him were al-Bukhārī—who, like the other compilers, reports from him through an intermediary—and Abū Bakr
…his own transcript of the shaykh’s samāʿ (audition) or a checked copy of it, and the shaykh says to him: “This is my audition from so-and-so; narrate it on my authority,” or: “I grant you permission (ijāza) to transmit it from me.” The shaykh then either leaves the manuscript with the student as his property or lends it to him so that he may copy and collate it, after which the student returns it.
Handing over the manuscript (munāwala) together with an explicit ijāza and full access to the copy is the highest form of ijāza; next comes munāwala with ijāza but without access to the copy; the weakest is mere munāwala with no ijāza at all.
See: al-Sakhāwī, Sharḥ Alfiyyat al-Ḥadīth, 2:101 ff.
(1) He speaks favourably of him here, yet in al-Mīzān, 3:262, he records: Abu Ḥātim said, “He is not relied upon as proof.” Al-Sājī judged him “weak,” and al-ʿUqaylī noted “errors occur in his ḥadīths.” Cf. Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Jarḥ wa-l-Taʿdīl, 6:235-236; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, fol. 1037.
(*) Further biographical sources: Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, 7:341; Ibn Maʿīn, Tārīkh, p. 573; Khalīfa, Ṭabaqāt, no. 1622; al-Bukhārī, al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr, 7:334, and al-Tārīkh al-Ṣaghīr, 2:328; al-Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, 13:197-198; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, fol. 1346; al-Dhahabī, al-ʿIbar, 1:366; Tadhhīb al-Tahdhīb, 3:52/1; al-Dhahabī, al-Kāshif, 3:158; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, 10:215; Khalāṣat Tadhhīb al-Kamāl, p. 382; al-Ṣafadī, Shadharāt al-Dhahab, 2:34.
(2) The nisba derives from Maʿn ibn Mālik ibn Fahm ibn Ghanm ibn Daws, a sub-clan of al-Aws.