and a group who withdrew with him; they were therefore called the Muʿtazila. He would revile the Companions and transmit hadith inaccurately out of confusion, not with deliberate intent.
It is related from him that he said: “If the verse ‘Perish the hands of Abū Lahab’ (al-Masad 111:1) is inscribed in the Preserved Tablet, then it cannot be taken as evidence against the son of Adam.” (1)
He was also confronted with the hadith of Ibn Masʿūd which begins, “The Truthful, the Trusted, has informed us that the creation of one of you is gathered in his mother’s womb for forty days … then he is commanded regarding four matters: his provision, his life-span, his deeds, and whether he is wretched or blessed” (2) and so forth. About this report he said: “If I heard al-Aʿmash narrate it, I would accuse him of lying; were I to hear it from Zayd ibn Wahb, I would dislike it; if I heard it from Ibn Masʿūd, I would not accept it; if I heard it from the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—I would reject it; and if I heard Allah Himself say it, I would reply, ‘It was not upon this that You bound us by covenant.’” Such speech is uglier than disbelief. May Allah curse him if he really uttered it; and if it is a fabrication, the guilt falls upon the one who forged it.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
O seeker of knowledge, go to Ḥammād ibn Zayd;
Take knowledge with forbearance, then bind it with a chain;
and leave (3) the innovation found in the narrations of ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd. (4)
Ibn ʿAdī (5) said: “ʿAmr impressed people with his affected austerity; he is censured, extremely weak in hadith, and openly given to innovation.”
Al-Dāraqutnī said: “Weak in hadith.”
Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (6) wrote: “He kept company with al-Ḥasan and became famous for it, but Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ turned him away from the doctrine of Ahl al-Sunnah. He adopted the doctrine of qadar, called people to it, distanced himself from the scholars of hadith, and displayed a solemn bearing (7) and an outward show of asceticism.”