Al-Dāraquṭnī said, “He was reliable and fiercely devoted to the Sunnah.” (1)
I add: the highest chains of transmission ended with him. Al-Ḥākim relates from a transmitter who heard from him. He composed poetry and possessed many other virtues, and he was a leading authority on the Arabic language. He died in Baghdad on the fourteenth of Muḥarram, 341 AH.
A number of transmitters—whom Ibn Kulayb had authorized—reported to us: “ʿAlī ibn Bayān informed us; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Bazzāz informed us; Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār narrated to us (the fascicle of Ibn ʿArafah).”
In that same year there also passed away: Abū Ṭāhir Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr al-Madanī al-Khāmī; Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn al-Ṣammūt al-Raqqī; al-Manṣūr al-ʿUbaydī; Abū al-Ṭayyib Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd al-Ḥawrānī al-Kilābī; Abū Ḥātim Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Wasfandī; Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Manda; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Shawdhab of Wāsiṭ; and Abū al-Ḥasan Shuʿbah ibn al-Faḍl al-Baghdādī.
- Aḥmad ibn ʿUbayd al-Ṣaffār
A ḥadith transmitter, Abū Bakr al-Ḥimṣī al-Ruʿaynī. He reported from Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Marwazī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd al-Kalāʿī, and their contemporaries. Among those who narrated from him were Ibn Manda, Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Ḥājj, ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn Saʿīd al-Azdi, and others. He died in 352 AH.
I have mentioned him to distinguish him; his grandfather’s name was Aḥmad.