Allah might have looked upon me while I was committing some sin, loathed me for it and said, ‘Go—no forgiveness for you.’ The marvels of the Qur’an carry me through such reflections that an entire night can pass before I have finished my devotions.
Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī narrated, from Muḥammad ibn Fuḍayl al-Bazzār, who said: “Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb kept company with men who were among the most knowledgeable of people in Qur’anic exegesis. They were gathered in the mosque of al-Rabadha ⦗1⦘ when an earthquake struck, the mosque collapsed upon them, and they all died beneath it ⦗2⦘.”
Abū Maʿshar and a group of scholars said: He died in 108 AH.
Al-Wāqidī, Khalīfa, al-Fallās and others said: He died in 117 AH.
Al-Wāqidī and others added: He was seventy-eight years old.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr said: in 119 AH.
Ibn al-Madīnī, Ibn Maʿīn and Ibn Saʿd said: in 120 AH.
Whoever claimed 129 AH was mistaken.
He related ḥadīth from Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī, Abū Hurayrah, Muʿāwiyah, Zayd ibn Arqam, Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd al-Khatmī, Faḍālah ibn ʿUbayd, al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar, Kaʿb ibn ʿUjrah, Jābir, Abū Ṣirmah al-Anṣārī of Badr, Anas, and Ibn ʿUmar.
He also narrated from Muḥammad ibn Khuthaym, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Rāfiʿ, Abān ibn ʿUthmān, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaddād ibn al-Hād, and others.
He often transmitted mursal reports, citing authorities he had never met; thus he reported from Abū Dharr, Abū al-Dardāʾ, ʿAlī, al-ʿAbbās, Ibn Masʿūd, Salmān, and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, and he would say, “A man narrated to me from Abū Hurayrah.”
He was, indeed, one of the vessels of knowledge.