120 – Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmmār al-Mawṣilī * (S)
He was an imām, a ḥāfiẓ (hadith master), an authoritative proof, and the hadith scholar of Mosul, Abū Jaʿfar al-Mawṣilī.
He was born after 160 AH.
He studied under al-Muʿāfā ibn ʿImrān, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Abū Muʿāwiya, Wakīʿ, and others of their generation.
He authored a distinguished work on narrator evaluation and hidden defects.
Among those who transmitted from him are: al-Nasāʾī, al-Ḥusayn ibn Idrīs al-Harawī, Jaʿfar al-Firyābī, Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Bāghandī, ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and many others.
He was involved in trade, journeyed to Baghdad several times, and taught hadith there.
The ḥāfiẓ ʿUbayd al-ʿIjl used to venerate him and hold him in high regard.
Al-Nasāʾī said: “Reliable, a hadith specialist.”
Al-Khaṭīb said: “He belonged to the Mukharim line, settled in Mosul, and was one of the virtuous scholars, strong in memory and abundant in hadith.”
Al-Ḥusayn al-Harawī narrated from him a book he composed on hidden defects and the identification of teachers.
Ibn ʿAdī said: “I heard Abū Yaʿlā speak ill of him, saying: ‘He bore false witness against my maternal uncle.’”