—the hadith of Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl.

ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ al-Ashqar narrated from Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm, who said:
“I once passed by Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl while he was wearing black garments. My brother said to me, ‘Will you not listen to Ḥumayd?’ I replied, ‘Am I to take hadith from a policeman?!’ ”

Ibn ʿUyaynah said, “People say that what Ḥumayd heard from Anas and what he heard from Thābit became confused for him.”

It is reported from Shuʿbah that he said, “Everything Ḥumayd directly heard from Anas amounts to five hadiths.”

Abū ʿUbaydah al-Ḥaddād transmitted from Shuʿbah that he said, “Ḥumayd heard only twenty-four hadiths from Anas; the rest he heard from Thābit, or Thābit corroborated him in them.”

I say: The material narrated by Ḥumayd from Anas in the Islamic books is plentiful; I reckon that in the Six Canonical Collections alone there are about one hundred hadiths on Anas’s authority.

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī reported—through Abū Dāwūd—that he heard Shuʿbah say, “I heard Ḥabīb ibn al-Shahīd say to Ḥumayd, while he was narrating to me, ‘Watch what you relate to Shuʿbah, for he will transmit it from you.’ Then he said to me, ‘Ḥumayd is a forgetful man, so pay attention to what he relates to you.’ ”

Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh said: “We were in the presence of Ḥumayd when Shuʿbah came in and said, ‘O Abū ʿUbaydah, what about such-and-such a hadith?’—he was unsure about it. Ḥumayd replied, ‘Something like that does cross my mind on occasion.’ When Shuʿbah left, Ḥumayd remarked, ‘I do not doubt any of them, but the young man is arrogant, and I wanted to unsettle him.’ ”

Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī said: “He possesses many sound hadiths; because his narrations are so numerous, it is unnecessary for me to single out any one of them here.”

The leading imams have transmitted from him. As for the claim that he heard from Anas only the limited number just mentioned, and that the remainder he heard from Thābit on Anas’s authority, then those hadiths—