Al-Dāraquṭnī also said: “I heard Abū Bakr al-Naqqāsh state, ‘ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb is not one of the Successors (tābiʿīn); yet twenty of the Successors narrated from him.’”

I reply: Dāraquṭnī left the matter there, but in truth ʿAmr is a Successor (tābiʿī). He heard from the Prophet’s step-daughter Zaynab and from al-Rubayyiʿ, and both of them were Companions (ṣaḥāba) (1).

The ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAdī said: “The leading imams and trustworthy authorities narrated from him, as did a group of weak transmitters. Nevertheless, the reports he relates ‘from his father, from his grandfather’—though they were tolerant of them—were not inserted by them into the authentic collections they produced; they said, ‘It is merely a ṣaḥīfa (written notebook).’”

Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr and Shabāb said that ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb died in the year 118 AH, and Ibn Bukayr added, “in al-Ṭāʾif.”

I add: Among the weak narrators who report from him are al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-ʿArzamī, Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah, Ibn Luhayʿah, Isḥāq ibn Abī Farwah, al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Ḥamzah, and their like. When this class of transmitters alone relates something from him, its backbone is fragile and it is not cited as evidence. Even when the narrator is someone whose reliability is disputed—such as Usāmah ibn Zayd, Hishām ibn Saʿd, or Ibn Isḥāq—one still feels uneasy, and the preferable course is to refrain from using it as proof. The situation differs, however, with the narrations of Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim, Sulaymān ibn Mūsā al-Faqīh, and Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī; their reports are preferably accepted, provided the wording is neither anomalous nor objectionable.

Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “He has some reports that are munkar (irregular).”

Qutaybah said: “Ibn Luhayʿah narrated to us, from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, that he entered upon Zaynab—”