and then he began to ask his brothers for the sake of his brothers.

Al-Nasaʾi relates: Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Wazir reported to us, al-Shafiʿi reported to us, and Sufyan said,
“Whenever we saw a student of hadith attaching himself to any of three men, we would laugh at him: Rabiʿah, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Hazm, and Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad, because they were not adept in hadith.”

Mutarrif narrated—on the authority of the nephew of Ibn Hurmuz—“I saw Rabiʿah being flogged, and his head and beard were shaved.”

Ibrahim ibn al-Mundhir said, “The reason for this was Abu al-Zinad’s denunciation of him.”

Mutarrif also said, “I heard Malik declare, ‘The sweetness of jurisprudence departed the day Rabiʿah died.’”

I (the author) say: He was one of the great repositories of knowledge.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Hatim, and many others deemed him reliable. Ahmad further remarked, “Abu al-Zinad was more learned than he.”

Yaʿqub ibn Shaybah said, “Trustworthy, firmly established, and one of the muftis of Madinah.”

Abu Dawud stated, “Rabiʿah and ʿUmar, the freedman of Ghafarah, were maternal cousins.”

Musʿab al-Zubayri said, “He was known as Rabiʿah al-Raʾy (‘Rabiʿah of Reasoned Opinion’). He was the chief issuer of legal verdicts in Madinah; dignitaries would sit with him, and as many as 40 turbaned scholars were counted in his circle. Malik ibn Anas studied under him.”

Al-Layth narrated from Yahya ibn Saʿid: “I never saw anyone more perceptive than Rabiʿah ibn Abi ʿAbd al-Rahman.”

Al-Layth also transmitted from ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿUmar, who said, “He is the one to whom we refer our knotty problems—our scholar and the best among us.”

Ibn Wahb reported from ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn Aslam: “Rabiʿah spent a long period devoted to worship, praying night and day. Then he shifted from that to sitting with the scholars. He sat with al-Qasim, and thereupon spoke with discernment and intellect.”

He added, “When al-Qasim was asked…"