from Abū Mujliz—one or two reports at the most.

I asked, “Which report is that?”

He replied, “The Hour will not take place until the Arabs worship a house—or something.” (1)

I said to Yaḥyā, “Is this among what you yourself heard from Abū Mujliz?”

He answered, “Yes (2); I met him in Khurāsān.”

I then asked Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, “With respect to the narrations of Ibn Sīrīn, whom do you prefer—Hishām, or ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal and Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ?”

He replied, “Hishām.”

Then he added, “In the narrations from al-Ḥasan he stands, in my view, below Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr.”

Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl reported that Ḥammād ibn Salamah would choose no one over Hishām for the ḥadith of Ibn Sīrīn.

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said: “As for Hishām’s narrations from Muḥammad [i.e., Ibn Sīrīn], they are sound. Most of his narrations from al-Ḥasan revolve around Ḥawshab. In what he reports from Ibn Sīrīn, Hishām is more reliable than Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ; indeed, Hishām is reliable.”

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Khallāl transmitted from ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, who said: “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd and the senior scholars among our companions regarded Hishām ibn Ḥassān as trustworthy. Yet Yaḥyā deemed his narrations from ʿAṭāʾ weak, and people thought that he had taken his narrations from al-Ḥasan through Ḥawshab.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī—on the authority of ʿArʿarah ibn al-Birind—said: “I asked ʿAbbād ibn Manṣūr, ‘Do you know Ashʿath, the client of the family of Ḥumrān?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ I asked, ‘Did he use to sit with al-Ḥasan?’ He said, ‘Yes, frequently.’ I then asked, ‘What about Hishām ibn Ḥassān?’ He answered, ‘I never saw him with al-Ḥasan at all.’” ʿArʿarah added: