Aisha—though it was said that he never heard directly from her.
Those who reported from him were his son Khuthaym, Yazid ibn Abi Habib, Bukayr ibn al-Ashajj, Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Ansari, Jaʿfar ibn Rabiʿa, and a number of others.
Abu Hatim and others declared him trustworthy.
He was accustomed to fasting continuously.
ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Aziz said, “I do not know anyone who performs more prayer than ʿIrak ibn Malik.”
It was also said that ʿIrak urged ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Aziz to take back from the Umayyads whatever wealth and booty they had seized. When Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik assumed power, he exiled ʿIrak to the island of Dahlak ⦗1⦘ off the western coast of Yemen, and there he died—may Allah have mercy on him—during Yazid’s reign.
His hadith appear in all the canonical collections, but they are few in number. He probably died in 104 AH, or slightly earlier.
22 – ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Ḥassān ibn Thabit al-Ansari * (q)
A Madinan, a poet and the son of a poet.
His mother was Sirin, the maternal aunt of Ibrahim, the Prophet’s son (peace and blessings be upon him).
= vol. 7, p. 38; Tahdhib al-Kamal, p. 927; Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 4, p. 153; Mizān al-I‘tidāl, vol. 3, p. 63; al-‘Ibar, vol. 1, p. 122; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 7, p. 172; Khulāsat Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 264; Shadharāt al-Dhahab, vol. 1, p. 122.
(1) Yaqut states that Dahlak is an island in the Yemeni Sea, narrow, cramped and sweltering. Whenever the Umayyads grew angry with someone, they exiled him there. Abu l-Fath Nasr b. ‘Abd Allah b. Qalaqis al-Iskandari alludes to Dahlak and to its “keeper” Malik in the following verse:
“Uglier than Dahlak is no town at all; / every man who lands there is doomed. / This alone proves it is Hell itself, / and its warden is Malik.”
(*) Ibn Sa‘d, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, vol. 5, p. 266; Khalifah, al-Tabaqat, p. 251; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-kabir, vol. 5, p. 270; idem, al-Tarikh al-saghir, vol. 1, p. 76; al-Fasawi, al-Tarikh, vol. 1, p. 235; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-ta‘dil, vol. 5, p. 223; Tahdhib al-Kamal, p. 784; Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 2/208/2; Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 4, p. 141; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 6, p. 162; al-Isabah, no. 6199; Khulāsat Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 226.