—al-Tamimi, al-ʿAnbari, al-Basri, the judge of al-Rusafa in Baghdad, from a household of learning and judicature; his grandfather had been the judge of Basra.
Sawwār heard from ʿAbd al-Wārith al-Tannūrī, Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān, Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, and several others.
Those who narrated from him include Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Ghaḍāʾirī, and others.
Al-Nasāʾī said, “Reliable.”
Ismāʿīl the judge recounted: “Sawwār ibn ʿAbd Allāh the judge entered upon Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir and said, ‘O commander, I have come with a need which I first raised to Allah before raising it to you. If you fulfill it, we shall praise Allah and thank you; and if you do not, we shall still praise Allah and excuse you.’ He then granted all his requests.”
I add: He was one of the foremost poets—eloquent, articulate—and he wore a full beard.
Aḥmad ibn al-Muʿadhdhal the jurist said: “A deep passion had taken hold of Sawwār ibn ʿAbd Allāh’s heart, and he composed:
You have stripped my bones of their marrow, leaving them
naked in their skins, clashing and breaking.
You emptied them of substance until they became
like glass vessels in whose hollows the wind whistles.
Take my hand, then lift the veil and look—
my body is worn away, yet I still try to conceal it.
What drips from the eye is not its water;
it is my very soul, melting and falling drop by drop.”