Abu ʿUbayd al-Ājurrī relates, on the authority of Abū Dāwūd: “Faḍlak used to roam about Damascus with the reports of Abū Mushir and the other teachers, coaching Hishām ibn ʿAmmār with them, whereupon Hishām would go on to narrate them. I feared that he might tear a dangerous rift in Islam.”
Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Khallāl said, “Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn narrated to us, ‘Hishām ibn ʿAmmār narrated to us—and he is no liar,’ and he then mentioned a ḥadīth.”
Hāshim ibn Marthad said, “I heard Ibn Maʿīn remark, ‘Hishām ibn ʿAmmār is dearer to me than Ibn Abī Mālik.’”
Abū al-Qāsim Ibn al-Furāt reported: Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Iṣbahānī, the reciter, told us that when Ayyūb ibn Tamīm—the Qur’an-reciter of Damascus—died, the leadership passed to two men. One of them, Ibn Dhakwān, was famed for accurate recitation, and the people followed him. The other was Hishām ibn ʿAmmār, renowned for transmission, eloquence, narration, knowledge and discernment. He was the preacher of Damascus, blessed with long life and a sound mind and judgment, so people journeyed to him for both Qur’an recitation and ḥadīth.
Those who adopted his mode of recitation included Abū ʿUbayd, some forty years before Hishām’s death; Abū ʿUbayd, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, and Ibn Shābūr also transmitted ḥadīth from him.
Ibn Dhakwān used to favour him and acknowledge his standing because of his advanced age—Hishām had been born twenty years before him.
Hishām learned the Qur’an from Ayyūb, just as Ibn Dhakwān had, and surpassed him by also learning from al-Walīd, Suwayd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Ṣadaqa ibn Hishām—so he said, though I think he meant Ṣadaqa ibn Khālid—ʿIrāk ibn Khālid, Ṣadaqa ibn Yaḥyā, Mudrik ibn Abī Saʿd, and ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid. All of these were leading authorities who had themselves studied with Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥārith.
When Ibn Dhakwān died in 242 AH, the people united behind the leadership of—