Ibn Yūnus said, “Trustworthy, firmly reliable.” He died in Egypt in Shaʿbān of the year 261 AH.
161 – Muḥammad ibn ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Abū Jaʿfar al-Thaqafī *
The exemplar, devout worshipper, and truthful imam: Abū Jaʿfar, the client of the Thaqafīs from Isfahān, the brother of Usayd ibn ʿĀṣim and his brothers.
He heard ḥadith from: Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān, Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Juʿfī, Abū Usāmah, Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-ʿAbdī, Abū Yaḥyā al-Ḥimmānī, and several others.
Those who transmitted from him include Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Jārūd, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Mandah, Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ al-Jurjīrī, and many others, the last of whom was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad ibn Fāris.
It is related from Ibrāhīm ibn Urmah that he said, “I have never seen anyone like Muḥammad ibn ʿĀṣim, nor did he himself see anyone comparable to himself,” meaning in piety and merit (1).
ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Thaqafī said, “I used to attend Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, and I saw no one who resembled him in the excellence of his religion and the restraint of his tongue except Muḥammad ibn ʿĀṣim” (2).
Abū Shaykh—or someone else—said, “Muḥammad, Usayd, ʿAlī, and al-Nuʿmān, the sons of ʿĀṣim, were among…"