Shuʿbah said, “He was a ḥāfiẓ (master memorizer) and truthful of tongue.”

Abū Zurʿah of Damascus remarked, “I saw him with Abū Mushir treated as a reference for ḥadith.” He added, “I asked Duḥaym, ‘What is your opinion of Muḥammad ibn Rāshid?’ He replied, ‘Trustworthy, though he had a certain inclination.’ I then asked, ‘How does he compare with Saʿīd ibn Bashīr?’ and he placed Saʿīd ahead of him.

In another wording I asked Duḥaym what those he had met said about Saʿīd, and he responded, ‘They deem him reliable.’

Al-Bukhārī said, “Some speak about his precision, yet he is still acceptable.”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim reported: “I asked my father and Abū Zurʿah about Saʿīd ibn Bashīr. They said, ‘With us he holds the rank of honesty.’ I asked, ‘Is his ḥadith cited as evidence?’ They replied, ‘One adduces the ḥadith of Ibn Abī ʿArūbah and of ad-Dastawāʾī; this shaykh’s reports are written down.’ I also heard my father object to those who had placed him in the book of weak narrators, saying, ‘He should be transferred out of it’ (1).

ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd ad-Dārimī said, “Our teachers used to say, ‘He is trustworthy.’”

They further observed that the only criticism leveled against Saʿīd ibn Bashīr concerns his narration from Qatādah because of an irregularity that occurred in it. Ibn ʿAdī and al-Dāraquṭnī even said that he “erred in this ḥadith when transmitting it from Qatādah, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, from Abū Hurayrah, whereas his narration of it from al-Zuhrī (2) from Saʿīd is free of that blemish, and he was agreed with…"