215 – Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī al-ʿAbbāsī * (4)
He was the son of the prince Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī, grandson of “al-Baḥr” (“the Ocean”) ʿAbd Allah ibn al-ʿAbbās. A noble, eminent imam, accomplished scholar, hadith master, and dignified figure, Abū Ayyūb al-Hāshimī al-ʿAbbāsī ranks among the foremost authorities.
He heard ḥadith from Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd, Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar, ʿAbthar ibn al-Qāsim, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Hushaym, and their contemporaries.
Those who transmitted from him include Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Ṣāʿiqah, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī, al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah, Abū Muslim al-Kajjī, and others.
Al-Zaʿfarānī relates that Imām al-Shāfiʿī told him, “I have never seen anyone more intelligent than these two men: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī.” (1)
Al-Nasāʾī and others declared him “reliable.” (2)
Ibn Wārah reported that he heard Sulaymān al-Hāshimī say, “I may narrate a single ḥadith with one intention; when I reach part of it, my intention changes—so that one ḥadith ends up needing several intentions.” (3)
I possess a ḥadith which I recorded elsewhere from the transmission of Imām Aḥmad, from