through the narration of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Thābit ibn Thawban, from his father.

al-Tirmidhī judged the ḥadīth to be fair.

In al-Qazwīnī’s version the chain goes back to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, but that version is of no consequence; the correct narrator is Ibn ʿUmar.

ʿAbbās said: I heard Ibn Maʿīn say, “Makḥūl saw Abū Hind ad-Dārī and Wāthilah, and he also heard from Wāthilah, from Faḍālah ibn ʿUbayd, and from Anas. He declared erroneous anyone who reported that he met Abū Umāmah.”

Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah said: “Makḥūl narrated from Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ and from a number of Companions whom he never actually heard.”

Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah narrated: Makḥūl told me, “Most of what I relate to you is from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib and al-Shaʿbī.”

Tamīm ibn ʿAṭiyyah said: I heard Makḥūl say, “I kept going to Shurayḥ for six months, listening to the judgments he handed down.”

Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz reported that Makḥūl said, “I have never lodged anything in my breast that I heard without being able to retrieve it whenever I wished.”

Shuʿbah then said, “Makḥūl was the most learned jurist in Syria.”

Saʿīd [ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz] said: “Whenever he was asked about something, he would not answer until he had said, ‘There is no power nor might except through Allah. This is only an opinion, and an opinion can be right or wrong.’”

Tamīm ibn ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAbsī said: Makḥūl was often questioned, and he would reply, “Nadānam”—meaning, “I do not know.”

Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said: “Among us no one displayed better deportment in worship than Makḥūl and Rabīʿah ibn Yazīd.”

I say: This Rabīʿah ibn Yazīd al-Dimashqī, nicknamed “the Short,” was one of the reliable imams, a junior Successor.

He transmitted from Anas and several others.

Al-Awzāʿī and others reported that Makḥūl said, “To be brought forward and my neck struck is dearer to me than to be appointed judge, and to be appointed judge is dearer to me than to be put in charge of the public treasury.”