Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As

Photo: Ghinzo, Pixabay licence

عبد الله بن عمرو بن العاص

ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr

Person

A Companion who wrote down the Prophet’s sayings in his lifetime.

What it means

Abu Hurayra said that no one had more hadith than Abdullah ibn Amr, “because he wrote and I did not” (Sahih al-Bukhari). He kept a record he called al-Ṣādiqa, “the truthful one”, with the Prophet’s permission.

Often misunderstood as

That the hadith were passed on only by word of mouth for two centuries and are therefore unreliable.

What the sources say

His notebook is one of several records from the Prophet’s lifetime, along with those of Ali and Anas and the writings of the Companion Jabir. Hadith were taught from memory and from writing, side by side, from the first generation.