ibn ʿĀmir ibn Ghanm ibn ʿAdiyy ibn al-Najjār—Abū Ḥamzah, also known as Abū Thamāmah (1), an Anṣārī of the Najjār clan, servant and Companion of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

His mother was Umm Sulaym (2), Malīkah bint Milḥān ibn Khālid ibn Zayd ibn Ḥarām, the wife of Abū Ṭalḥah Zayd ibn Sahl al-Anṣārī.

He transmitted a large number of hadith from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, conveyed important points of knowledge, and also narrated from Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Ibn Masʿūd, and others. A great many of the Successors reported from him.

Anas said, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived in Madinah when I was ten years old, and he passed away when I was twenty.” (3)

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Anṣārī related from his father, from Thumāmah, who said: It was asked of Anas, “Did you witness Badr?” He replied, “How could I have been absent from Badr—may your mother be bereft of you!” Al-Anṣārī added: “He was present at Badr serving the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” (4)

Our teacher, the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī (5), said: “None of the authors of the maghāzī mention this.”

I say: The apparent conclusion is that he witnessed only the campaigns that followed thereafter; Allah knows best.

It is authentically established that his mother—according to another report, his uncle, his mother’s husband Abū Ṭalḥah—brought him to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, “O Messenger of Allah, this is Anas, an intelligent boy who will serve you.” She offered him to the Prophet, who accepted him, and then asked him to supplicate for him. He said, “O Allah, increase his wealth and his offspring and admit him into Paradise.” (6)

It is also authentically related from him that he said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave me the kunya Abū Ḥamzah because of a little herb I used to gather.” (7)(8)

Abū Bakr and, after him, ʿUmar appointed him as governor of Bahrain, and both were pleased with his service.

He likewise said: “I served the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for ten years; he never struck me, never insulted me, never frowned in my face, nor did he ever say to me about something I had left undone, ‘Why did you not do it this way?’”

Some also say that the Prophet ﷺ prayed for him, saying: “O Allah, increase his wealth and his children, and prolong his life.”