al-Kindiyyah! Are there on earth even fifty people who fear what you fear?”
Then he added, “Or thirty… or twenty… or ten… or five… or three. By Him in Whose hand is my soul, no servant ever feels secure about his faith without it being stripped from him or torn away so that he loses it. By Him in Whose hand is my soul, faith is nothing but a garment: one moment he puts it on and another he takes it off.”
34 – Kamil ibn Talhah, Abu Yahya al-Jahdari al-Basri
An imam, a hadith master, reliable and trustworthy, the leading shaykh of Basra in his time. He was a Basran who later resided in Baghdad and the uncle of the hadith scholar Abu Kamil Fudayl ibn al-Husayn al-Jahdari.
He was born in 145 AH and travelled widely in search of hadith.
He related traditions from: Hammad ibn Salamah; Mubarak ibn Fadalah; Abu Hilal Muhammad ibn Sulaym; Fadal ibn Jubayr (the companion of Abu Umamah); Mahdi ibn Maymun; al-Layth ibn Saʿd; Malik ibn Anas; ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar al-ʿUmari; Ibn Luhayʿah; Abu ʿAwanah; Buhlul ibn Rashid al-Ifriqi; Abu al-Ashhab Jaʿfar al-ʿAtaridi; ʿAbbad ibn ʿAbd al-Samad (one of al-Talfā); Abu Mawdud ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Abi Sulayman al-Madani; Abu Sahl Muhammad ibn ʿAmr al-Ansari; and Abu Hisham al-Qannad.
Those who narrated from him include: Abu Khaythamah; Ibrahim al-Harbi; Abu Dawud in his book al-Masaʾil; Ibn Abi al-Dunya; Abu Hatim; Abu Bakr ibn Abi ʿAsim; Mutayyin; Hanbal; ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad; Muhammad ibn Hibban al-Bahili; and Ahmad ibn ʿAli the judge.