Amr bin Ubayd: His life and place in hadith

Amr b. Ubayd, who lived at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century of Hijrah, is one of the most prominent students of Hasan al-Basri. In the sources, he comes to the fore with his upright stance in the face of injustice, his righteous (âdil), pious (âbid) and austere (zâhid) personality. In addition, he distinguished himself with his competence in the sciences of hadith, kalam and tafsir. He is considered, together with Wâsil b. Atâ, as the founder and leader of the Mu`tezilite kalam school. Amr b. Ubayd was taught in the hadith circles in Basra, memorized hadith, wrote prophetic narrations, and himself established circles where he transmitted the narrations he had acquired. This study examines his understanding of hadith, his situation in the evaluations of the hadith critics (imams of jarh and ta`dîl) and some aspects of his narrations found in the sources. In the sources authored by hadith scholars, Amr was accused of lying and some other negative qualities in a way that does not match his personality as described in the Mu`tazilite sources. In the works of hadith scholars, he was censored by ruling out his name from the narrations he reported. This study observes that these allegations made about Amr by Ahl al-Hadith circles do not reflect the case because they were related to political and sectarian conflicts, far from being objective, and extremely subjective.