Ṣāliḥ Jazrah said, “He is truthful.” (1)
I add: He compiled the book Ṭabaqāt al-Shuʿarāʾ (The Classes of Poets). (2)
al-Ḥusayn ibn Fahm recounted: “Muhammad ibn Salām came to us in Baghdad in the year 222 AH. He fell severely ill, so the dignitaries sent him their physicians, among them the physician Ibn Māsawayh. When Ibn Māsawayh examined him he said, ‘What I notice is not the illness so much as the alarm.’
“He replied, ‘By Allah, this is not out of greed for this world—not at eighty-two years of age—but a person remains heedless until his knowledge rouses him.’
“Ibn Māsawayh said, ‘Do not be distressed. I have felt in your pulse such innate heat and vigor that, if Allah protects you from unexpected ailments, will carry you another ten years.’”
Ibn Fahm added: “His prognosis matched what was decreed; he lived on as predicted and died in the year 232 AH.” (3)
Abū Khalīfah said, “Muhammad ibn Salām’s beard and hair turned white when he was twenty-seven years old.” (4)
Another authority said: “He died in 231 AH, and he used to say:
I have outlived three households—they all have died;
Now I am in the fourth, and children are mine.” (5)
I say: He lived a little over ninety years.