I then informed Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim of this, and he said, “I sat with al-Ḥasan for seven years; never once did I see Hishām in his company.”
I asked, “And what about Ashʿath?”
He replied, “Whenever I visited al-Ḥasan I found him sitting with him.”

Shuʿayb ibn Ḥarb reports from Shuʿbah, who said, “Had I wished to show favouritism to anyone, I would have shown it to Hishām ibn Ḥassān—he was my son-in-law (1)—but he did not memorise precisely.”

Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ, quoting Ibn Maʿīn, said: “Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh maintained that Shuʿbah avoided the ḥadith of Hishām concerning ʿAṭāʾ, Muḥammad, and al-Ḥasan.”

He also said that Wuhaib remarked, “Sufyān asked me to supply him with material from Hishām ibn Ḥassān, but I said, ‘I do not deem that lawful.’ Instead I furnished him with narrations from Ayyūb, from Muḥammad, after which he went and questioned Hishām about them.”

Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb relates from Ḥammād: “Ayyūb and Yaḥyā were informed of a report transmitted by Hishām, from Muḥammad, in which he said, ‘I asked ʿUbaydah what invalidates wuḍūʾ (ablution). He replied, “Minor ritual impurity and harming a fellow Muslim.”’ They rejected his addition, ‘and harming a fellow Muslim.’”

Ḥammād ibn Zayd said: “Hishām used to trace a report of Muḥammad from Abū Hurayrah back to the Prophet, saying, ‘The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said….’ I mentioned this to Ayyūb, who said, ‘Tell him: Muḥammad never traced it back, so do not trace it back; he merely leaned toward attributing it upward.’ I conveyed this to Hishām, and he stopped raising it.”

Sulaym ibn Akhdar, citing Ibn ʿAwn, said: “Muḥammad would not trace any hadith of Abū Hurayrah back to the Prophet except three: ‘He performed one of the two late-afternoon prayers,’ ‘The people of Yemen have arrived,’—and he did not mention the third.”

I say: The two Imāms have included in their Ṣaḥīḥs some of the narrations that Muḥammad reports from Abū Hurayrah and traces back to the Prophet