“I heard,” or “I inquired,” then whatever he transmits leaves no misgiving in one’s soul; he was truly one of the storehouses of knowledge.
ʿAbd al-Razzaq said: “Abū Jaʿfar—the caliph—arrived in Mecca and ordered, ‘Bring me the ḥadith of Ibn Jurayj.’ They were presented to him, and he exclaimed, ‘How excellent they are—were it not for this padding,’ meaning his phrases, ‘It has reached me,’ and ‘I was told.’
Aḥmad ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Maryam reported from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: ‘Ibn Jurayj is reliable in everything that is transmitted from his written collections.’
Ismāʿīl ibn Dāʾūd al-Mikhrāqī narrated from Mālik ibn Anas, who said: ‘Ibn Jurayj was a nighttime wood-gatherer.’
Muḥammad ibn Minhāl al-Ḍarīr reported from Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ: ‘Ibn Jurayj trafficked in refuse.’
Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Sukaynah al-Ḥalabī narrated from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yaḥyā, who said: ‘May Allah judge between me and Mālik; he called me a Qadarī. As for Ibn Jurayj, I related to him—from Mūsā ibn Wardān, from Abū Hurayrah—that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever dies while standing guard on the frontier dies a martyr.” Yet he traced me back to my maternal grandfather and then reported from me: “Whoever dies while ill dies a martyr (1),” and that is not what I had narrated to him.’
(1) Reported by Ibn Majah, Sunan, no. 1615, Book of Funerals, chapter “Concerning the one who dies while ill.” Al-Sindi notes that al-Suyuti classed this hadith among the fabrications cited by Ibn al-Jawzi, arguing that it contains the narrator Ibrahim b. Muhammad b. Abi Yahya al-Aslami, who is abandoned. Al-Suyuti adds that Ahmad b. Hanbal held the authentic wording to be: “Whoever dies while standing guard on the frontier (murabitan) …”
Al-Darqutni relates with his own chain that Ibrahim b. Abi Yahya said: “I transmitted this hadith to Ibn Jurayj as, ‘Whoever dies while guarding the frontier,’ but he reported it from me as, ‘Whoever dies while ill,’ and that is not how I narrated it.”
In Misbah al-Zujajah, 1/105, al-Darqutni—through his chain to Ibn Abi Sakina al-Halabi (Muhammad b. Ibrahim)—reports that Ibrahim b. Abi Yahya said: “May Allah judge between me and Malik; he called me a Qadari. As for Ibn Jurayj, I narrated to him, on the authority of Musa b. Wardan from Abu Hurayra, that the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Whoever dies while guarding the frontier dies a martyr.’ Yet he attributed me through my maternal grandfather and reported: ‘Whoever dies while ill dies a martyr,’ which is not what I told him.”
The compiler of the Zawaid then remarks: “This isnad is weak. Ibrahim b. Muhammad was branded a liar by Malik, Yahya al-Qattan, and Ibn Maʿin. Imam Ahmad said: ‘He is a Qadari, Muʿtazili, Jahmi—every calamity resides in him.’ Al-Bukhari said: ‘He is a Jahmi’; Ibn al-Mubarak and other scholars abandoned him.”