are irregular; we record his ḥadith only for comparison, but as for treating them as proof—no.
Muhammad ibn ʿAlī al-Jawzajānī the bookseller said:
“I asked Aḥmad, ‘Did ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb hear anything from his father?’
He replied, ‘He says, “My father narrated to me.”’
I asked, ‘And did his father hear from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr?’
He said, ‘Yes, it appears he did hear from him.’
Al-Athram reported: Abū ʿAbd Allāh was asked about ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb and said, “Sometimes we cite him as evidence, and sometimes the heart feels uneasy about him; Mālik relates from a man who narrates from him.”
Al-Tirmidhī quoted al-Bukhārī as saying: “I saw Aḥmad, ʿAlī, Isḥāq, Abū ʿUbayd, and the great majority of our companions relying on the ḥadith of ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb—from his father, from his grandfather. Not one of the Muslims abandoned it; so who, after them, would dare do so?”
I say: I find it improbable that these exact words came from al-Bukhārī; I fear Abū ʿĪsā may have been mistaken. Otherwise, al-Bukhārī does not even glance at ʿAmr—can you imagine him saying, “So who are the people after them?” and then never employing his reports, neither as primary evidence nor even for corroboration?
Indeed, those who did rely on him include the compilers of the four Sunan, Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Ḥibbān in certain instances, and al-Ḥākim (1).
Abū Dāwūd transmitted from Aḥmad, who said, “When the ḥadith scholars…"
(1) He writes in al-Mustadrak, 2/65: “Throughout this book I have marshalled numerous proofs for the soundness of the narrations of Amr ibn Shuayb whenever his transmitter is trustworthy. Yet I was still looking for unequivocal evidence that Shuayb ibn Muhammad actually heard from Abd Allah ibn Amr, and I did not obtain it until now. Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Umar the hadith-scholar related to me; Abu Bakr Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Ziyad, the jurist of Nishapur, narrated to us; Muhammad ibn Ubayd narrated to us; Ubayd Allah ibn Umar narrated to us, from Amr ibn Shuayb, from his father:
A man came to Abd Allah ibn Amr asking about someone in ihram who had had intercourse with a woman. Abd Allah ibn Amr pointed to Abd Allah ibn Umar and said, ‘Go to him and ask.’ Shuayb continues: The man did not recognise Ibn Umar, so I accompanied him. He questioned Ibn Umar, who answered: ‘Your pilgrimage is invalid.’ The man then asked, ‘What should I do?’ Ibn Umar replied, ‘Enter ihram with the people, do what they do, and when the next year comes, perform the pilgrimage and offer a sacrificial animal.’
We returned to Abd Allah ibn Amr—I was with him—and he said, ‘Go to Ibn Abbas and ask him.’ Shuayb says: I went with the man to Ibn Abbas; he asked, and Ibn Abbas replied exactly as Ibn Umar had done. We then went back to Abd Allah ibn Amr—I was still with him—told him what Ibn Abbas had said, and he asked, ‘What is your own opinion?’ The man answered, ‘I hold the same view as the two of them.’”