Hammad bin Zayd bin Dirham (Arabic: حماد بن زيد بن درهم (716–795)) was an Islamic scholar and jurisprudent from Basrah, Iraq. He was a blind, hujjah (proofed) and an able hadith narrator who memorized all his hadiths well. Hamad used tadlis (concealment).[1] He was highly regarded for his knowledge and was considered to be on par with Imam Malik in terms of his scholarly contributions. Hammad bin Zayd was known for his firm stance against the Jahmiyyah, a theological group that held controversial views about the nature of Allah.[2][3]
According to Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ali ibn al-Madini (d. 849) considered the most authentic chain that begin with Abu Hurairah as being Abu Hurairah → Ibn Sirin → Ayyub al-Sakhtiani → Hammad ibn Zaid.[4]
According to Ahmad Muhammad Shakir (d. 1958), a hadith scholar from Al-Azhar University, the most authentic asnād that came from Abu Hurayrah, one of them was:[5]
In a hadis books Kitâbu’l-Mecrûhîn’, where Hammad criticized Amr ibn Ubayd, stating that Amr used to lie and fabricate Hadiths.[6]
He died in Basra. There are many hadiths of him in Sahih al-Bukhari. Scholars of hadith generally agree that Hamad ibn Zayd was a reliable narrator.[1][7]