123 – Ṣafwān ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Ṣafwān ibn Dīnār * (D, T, S)
A master memorizer (ḥāfiẓ), ḥadīth scholar (muhaddith), and reliable authority (thiqah); he was the muezzin of the Great Mosque of Damascus. His kunya was Abū ʿAbd al-Malik al-Thaqafī, a client of that tribe and a native Damascene.

He studied under Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Marwān ibn Muʿāwiyah, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, Suwayd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ, Muḥammad ibn Shuʿayb, and others of their generation.

Transmitters who reported from him include: Abū Dāwūd; through an intermediary, al-Tirmidhī; al-Nasāʾī; Abū Zurʿah; Abū Ḥātim; Abū Zurʿah al-Naṣrī; Aḥmad ibn Anas ibn Mālik; Aḥmad ibn al-Muʿallā; Jaʿfar al-Firyābī; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Qutaybah; and many others.

He was born in 168—or, according to another view, 169—AH.

ʿAmr ibn Duḥaym said: “He died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 239 AH.”

Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī declared him trustworthy.

Salm ibn Muʿādh related: “I said to Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, ‘Ṣafwān ibn Ṣāliḥ is refusing to narrate to us.’ Then Ṣafwān entered and greeted him.

Sulaymān said, ‘I have heard that you decline to transmit ḥadīth?’

He replied, ‘O Abū Ayyūb, the authorities have stopped us.’

Sulaymān retorted, ‘Woe to you! Go ahead and narrate, for I have been told that the people of Paradise will need the scholars there just as they need them in this world. So narrate—perhaps you will be among them!’ Thereupon Ṣafwān narrated ḥadīth to us.”