ʿAbbās al-Anbari said: “I heard Abū al-Walīd; Wuhaib related to me and said, ‘I asked Mālik about Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq. He answered, said such-and-such, and ended up accusing him.’

Al-ʿUqaylī said: “Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās, the client of Banū Hāshim, narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Manṣūr Zāj (1) narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Zuhayr narrated to me; I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī say, ‘Both Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī and Mālik used to censure Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq.’”

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (from Muḥammad ibn Muslim ibn Abī al-Waḍḍāḥ) said: “I was with Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī when someone remarked, ‘The people of Iraq are narrating from Ibn Isḥāq!’ Yaḥyā exclaimed, ‘You transmit knowledge from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq? You transmit knowledge from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq?!’”

Al-ʿUqaylī said: “Al-Faḍl ibn Jaʿfar narrated to me; ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd narrated to me: Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān said to me, ‘I testify that Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq is a liar.’ I asked, ‘How do you know that?’ He replied, ‘Wuhaib told me.’ So I said to Wuhaib, ‘And how do you know?’ He answered, ‘Mālik ibn Anas told me.’ I then said to Mālik, ‘And how do you know?’ He said, ‘Hishām ibn ʿUrwah told me.’ I said to Hishām, ‘And how do you know?’ He replied, ‘He claimed to have narrated from my wife, Fāṭimah bint al-Mundhir. She entered my household when she was nine years old, and he never even saw her until she met Allah.’”

I say: God forbid that Yaḥyā and the others would have uttered such words on the basis of a corrupt and flimsy premise. Rather, this fabrication is the handiwork of Sulaymān al-Shādhkūnī—may Allah not grant him a good morning—for all his acknowledged mastery of memorisation, he stands accused by them of lying. Notice how he has carefully strung the tale together.

What proves its falsehood is that when Fāṭimah bint al-Mundhir was nine years old, her husband Hishām had not yet been born; she is older than he by a little over ten years, and she possesses a higher isnād—