—who said: “I heard my father say, ‘I heard Ṣāʿid ibn Sayyār say, “I heard the Imām Abū Ismāʿīl al-Anṣārī remark about ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mandah:
‘His harm to Islam was greater than his benefit.’ (1)

I say: he—may Allah pardon him—used certain expressions for which some people branded him an innovator.

He was harsh with anyone who disagreed with him, displaying something of a Khārijite streak, yet he also had commendable qualities. In his writings he was like a night wood-gatherer: he recorded both the worthless and the valuable, stringing cheap beads together with priceless pearls.

Yaḥyā said: ‘My uncle died on the sixteenth of Shawwāl in the year 470 AH. His brother ʿAbd al-Wahhāb led the funeral prayer, and an innumerable multitude accompanied his bier.’ (2)

Among those who narrated from him were the ḥāfiẓ Abū Saʿd ibn al-Baghdādī, Abū Bakr al-Bāghbān, and—by ijāza—Masʿūd al-Thaqafī. He first began transmitting hadith in 407 AH while many of his senior shaykhs were still alive.

Qāsim ibn Muẓaffar told us, from Maḥmūd ibn Ibrāhīm; Maʿsūd ibn al-Ḥasan told us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad authorised it; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ahwāzī informed us; al-Ḥusayn ibn Ismāʿīl related to us; Salm ibn Junādah narrated; Abū Muʿāwiyah and Ibn Numayr narrated from al-Aʿmash, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, who said:

The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, ‘Whichever believer I have insulted, or cursed, or flogged—let that be made for him an expiation and a mercy.’

Muslim recorded it (3) from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Numayr, from his father."}