Osman b. Hattab b. ʿAbdillah Abū ʿAmr al-Balawī al-Maghribī al-Ashajj. He is known as Abūʾd-Dunyā.
This person came to Baghdad after the year 300 of the Hijra and claimed that he was born in the Maghrib at the beginning of the caliphate of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him). He related that he went with his father to visit ʿAlī (may Allah ennoble his face), and that on the way they became extremely thirsty. When he went to look for water for his father, he saw a spring, drank from it, and washed himself there. Then, when he returned to his father to give him water, he found that his father had passed away. He then recounted that he went alone to ʿAlī, and when he wanted to kiss his knee, he struck his head on the knee and wounded his head, and for this reason he was called al-Ashajj (the wounded one).
Some people said that his claims in this matter were true, and they narrated from him a copy in which the hadiths of ʿAlī were transmitted. Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Mufīd also affirmed the authenticity of these narrations and transmitted them from him. However, the grandfather of Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Mufīd, was a person accused of Shiʿism. Because of his own affiliation with ʿAlī, he treated these claims with leniency. All other groups of hadith scholars, both early and later, denied him in this matter, rejected these claims, and stated unequivocally that the collection of hadiths he transmitted was fabricated. Among them are Abū Ṭāhir Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Salafī and the following hadith masters: the authority of the age, Shaykh al-Islām Abūʾl-ʿAbbās Ibn Taymiyya, Abūʾl-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī, and the Islamic historian Ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAbdillah al-Dhahabī. I have clearly stated this matter in my book "Takmil". Praise and gratitude are due to Allah.
Mufīd said: "Al-Ashajj died this year (the year 327 of the Hijra) while returning to his homeland." Allah knows best.
Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar
Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Sahl Abū Bakr al-Kharāʾiṭī. He is the author of the work "Maqāmāt". He was originally from Samarra, but later came to settle in Damascus, where he spread the science of hadith.