At a glance
- Roles
- muhaddith · Scholar
- Counted among
- Sunni
- Era
- The Early Abbasid Caliphate
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Identifiers
- Wikidata
- Review
- Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
Life in time
Place in the story
- TransmitterTradition
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
In brief
Hammad b. Zayd b. Dirham, the imam and memoriser, generous shaykh of Iraq, Abu Isma'il al-Azdi their client of Basra, the blue-eyed blind man; his grandfather Dirham was among the captives of Sijistan of the clients of the family of Jarir b. Hazim. He narrated from Abu Imran al-Jawni, Muhammad b. Ziyad, Abu Qurra al-Dab'i, Anas b. Sirin, Amr b. Dinar, Thabit al-Bunani, and others — he did not reach Qatada. 1
His standing
Abd al-Rahman b. Mahdi, Musaddad, Muhammad b. Abi Bakr al-Muqaddimi, Ali b. al-Madini, Ahmad b. Hanbal, and hosts besides narrated from him. Ibn Mahdi said "the imams of the people in their time are four: al-Thawri, Malik, al-Awza'i, and Hammad b. Zayd", Yahya b. Ma'in said "no one is more reliable than Hammad b. Zayd", Ahmad said "he is among the imams of the Muslims of the people of religion, and dearer to me than Hammad b. Salama", Ibn Mahdi said "I never saw anyone more learned than him — not Malik, not Sufyan — nor anyone in Basra of deeper fiqh", Yazid b. Zuray' called him "chief of the Muslims"; blind, he kept all his hadith memorised with no book — it was said he held four thousand hadiths. 2
His death
Born in 98 AH, he died in Ramadan of 179 AH. 3
People and things also explored
The seven ahruf· Hadith· Shama'il Muhammadiyya· The Prophetic sira· The Prophetic Sunna· Command, prohibition and capacity· The Sunna as explanation of the Qur'an· Bid'a (religious innovation)
Sources
- Tadhkirat al-huffaz — al-Dhahabi , j.1 p.215
- Tadhkirat al-huffaz — al-Dhahabi , j.1 p.215-216
- Tadhkirat al-huffaz — al-Dhahabi , j.1 p.216
- Mawsu'at A'lam al-Ulama' wa-l-Adaba' al-Arab wa-l-Muslimin — Dar al-Jil / ALECSO
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Hammad ibn Zayd”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/hammad-ibn-zayd/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-21.