as well as al-Dhuhalī, Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib, al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj, Musaddad ibn Qaṭan, and others besides.

Aḥmad ibn Sayyār said, “He was a short man, somewhat dark-skinned, with a long beard which he never dyed.”

Al-Nasāʾī declared him “reliable.”

Aḥmad ibn Salamah relates from ʿAmr ibn Zurārah who said, “I accompanied Ibn ʿUlayyah for thirteen years and never once saw him smile during that whole time.”

Al-Ḥākim said: ʿAmr ibn Zurārah heard from Abū ʿUbaydah al-Ḥaddād, Hushaym, and a number of others whom he listed. He also recited the Qur’an to al-Kisāʾī, and I met several of his students from later generations.

Al-Sarrāj remarked, “He possessed a certain roughness.” (1)

Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī recounted: “We used to visit ʿAmr ibn Zurārah. One day he came out to us and a man laughed. ʿAmr said, ‘Even if one sets scrupulousness aside, is there not still piety? And if piety is set aside, is there not still modesty?’ He then rose and went back inside.” (2)

I say: One may likewise say to a boorish person, “Suppose good character has vanished—does forbearance not remain? And if forbearance has gone—does forgiveness not remain?”

Al-Bukhārī said: He died in 238 AH.

94 – ʿUmar ibn Zurārah, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Hadathī *
The ḥadīth scholar, truthful and reliable, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Hadathī—other than the man of the preceding biography. He has