142 – ʿAwn ibn Salām, Abū Jaʿfar al-Kūfī * (M)
A venerable shaykh, learned, long-lived and truthful—Abū Jaʿfar al-Kūfī.
He heard hadith from Abū Bakr al-Nahshali, Isrāʾīl ibn Yūnus, Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah, and Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah ibn Muṣarrif.
Those who narrated from him include Muslim—who counted him among his senior teachers—Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Abbār, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Muṭayyan, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, Mūsā ibn Isḥāq al-Khaṭmī, Mūsā ibn Hārūn al-Ḥammāl, and others.
He lived for ninety years.
He was ṣadūq (reliable); I know of no fault in him.
He died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah, 230 AH.
Among the leading speculative theologians and Muʿtazilites who appeared after 200 AH were: Bishr ibn Ghayāth (1) al-Marīsī al-ʿAdawī, a client of the household of Zayd ibn al-Khattāb; Abū Sahl Bishr ibn al-Muʿtamir (2) al-Kūfī, known as al-Abras—one of the foremost Muʿtazilites and their authors; Abū Maʿn Thumāmah ibn Ashras (3) al-Numayrī al-Baṣrī; Abū al-Hudhayl Muḥammad ibn al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf al-Baṣrī (4); Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Sayyār al-Baṣrī an-Naẓẓām (5); and Hishām ibn