Yahya ibn Maʿin said: Abu Hafs al-Abbār narrated to us, from Ibn Abī Laylā, who said:

“I entered upon ʿAṭāʾ, and he began to ask me questions. His companions looked uneasy and said, ‘You are asking him?!’

He replied, ‘And why are you surprised? He is more knowledgeable than I am.’

Ibn Abī Laylā added, ‘ʿAṭāʾ was indeed an authority on the rites of Hajj.’

Al-Khuraybī narrated from Sulaymān ibn Sāfirī who said:

I asked Manṣūr, ‘Who is the most proficient jurist among the people of Kūfa?’

He answered, ‘Their judge, Ibn Abī Laylā.’

Ibn Ḥibbān said: “Ibn Abī Laylā had a poor memory and made many mistakes; consequently, numerous anomalies appear in his reports, so they warrant abandonment.”

Ahmad and Yahya refrained from accepting his narrations.

I (the author) say: We have not seen that the two of them discarded him outright; rather, they regarded his hadith as weak.

Hafs ibn Ghiyāth said: “Part of the distinction of Ibn Abī Laylā is that he recited the Quran to ten different teachers.”

Yahya ibn Yaʿlā al-Muḥāribī said: “Zāʾidah rejected the hadith of Ibn Abī Laylā.”

Ahmad ibn Yūnus said: “Ibn Abī Laylā was the most learned jurist in the world.”

ʿĀʾidh ibn Ḥabīb said: “I heard Ibn Abī Laylā declare, ‘Whatever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ settled by casting lots is lawful; whatever he did not settle in that way is gambling.’”

Al-Khuraybī said: “I heard al-Thawrī remark, ‘Our jurists are Ibn Abī Laylā and Ibn Shubruma.’”

Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Taymī informed us; ʿAbd al-Muʿizz ibn Muhammad al-Bazzār informed us; Zāhir ibn Ṭāhir informed us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAlī informed us; Yaḥyā ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥarbī informed us; Makkī ibn ʿAbdān informed us; Isḥāq ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Razīn narrated to us; Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us, from Ibn Abī Laylā, from al-Ḥakam, from al-Rabīʿ ibn ʿUmaylah, from Abū Sarīḥah al-Ghifārī, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Ten signs will come before the Hour: a sinking of the earth in the East, a sinking in the West, a sinking in the Arabian Peninsula; the Beast; the Smoke; the Antichrist; the son of Mary; Gog and Magog; and a wind that will sweep the people away.”