Malik related to me, from Rabiʿah, who said: When he was about to leave for Iraq he told me, “If you ever hear that I have narrated hadith to them or given them fatwas, then consider me of no account.”

And so it was: when he reached Iraq he remained confined to his house, never went out to the people and did not transmit a single report to them until he returned home.

Ahmad ibn ʿImran said: I heard Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash say, “I entered the mosque and found Rabiʿah seated, surrounded by the young men of the ahl al-raʾy (the rationalist jurists). I asked him, ‘Have you heard anything from Anas?’ He replied, ‘Two hadiths.’ ”

Abu Bakr al-Khatib said: “Rabiʿah was a jurist, a scholar, and a memoriser of fiqh and hadith. He came to al-Saffah in al-Anbar; the caliph had summoned him to appoint him as judge.”

It is said that he died in al-Anbar; it is also said that he died in Medina.

Ibn Saʿd stated: “He died in the year 136 AH in Medina, as al-Waqidi informed me.”

Yahya ibn Maʿin and others said: “He died in al-Anbar. He was reliable and prolific in hadith, but scholars were cautious of him because of his reliance on opinion.”

Several scholars recorded his death in that manner.

Mutarrif ibn ʿAbd Allah said: I heard Malik say, “The sweetness of jurisprudence disappeared the day Rabiʿah ibn Abi ʿAbd al-Rahman died.”

A fabricated story that has been circulated:

Al-Musallam ibn Muhammad informed us; al-Kindi informed us; al-Qazzaz informed us; al-Khatib informed us; Abu al-Qasim al-Azhari informed us; Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Shadhan informed us; Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Marwan al-Maliki in Egypt told us; Yahya ibn Abi Talib narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Wahhab ibn ʿAtaʾ al-Khaffaf narrated; the elders of Medina narrated to me:

Farrukh, the father of Rabiʿah, joined the military expeditions to Khurasan in the Umayyad period as a warrior, while Rabiʿah was still in his mother’s womb. He left with his wife—Rabiʿah’s mother—thirty thousand dinars.

After twenty-seven years he returned to Medina, riding a horse with a spear in his hand. He dismounted, struck the door with his spear, and Rabiʿah came out and said, “Enemy of Allah! Do you dare storm my house?”

He answered, “No.” Farrukh replied, “Enemy of Allah! You are a man who has entered upon my wife.”