heard from him either; what they really faulted him for was his concealment of intermediaries (tadlīs).
He transmitted roughly 600 hadiths.
It is reported that Sufyān once came to him to listen to hadith. When Sufyān rose to leave, Ḥajjāj remarked, “Does that little ‘son of Thawr’ imagine that we care about him? We could not care less whether he comes to us or not!”
Ḥajjāj was proud by nature, and he had once served as chief of police.
It is also related—on the authority of Ḥammād ibn Zayd—that “Ḥammād ibn Abī Sulaymān and Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah came to us, and the crowd around Ḥajjāj was larger.”
Ḥajjāj was a devoted transmitter from ʿAṭāʾ, having heard directly from him.
Abū Ṭālib narrated from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal: “He was among the memorisers.”
Someone asked, “Then why is he not held in high esteem by people?” He replied, “Because his reports almost always contain additions beyond what others narrate; hardly a single hadith of his is free of extra material.”
Ibn Abī Khaythama related from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, who said, “He is truthful, though not strong; he practises tadlīs, narrating from Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-ʿArzamī on the authority of ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb—that is, he omits al-ʿArzamī.”
Ibn al-Madīnī reported from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd: “Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah and Ibn Isḥāq are, to me, on the same footing. I deliberately abandoned Ḥajjāj and never wrote down any of his hadith.”
Abū Zurʿah said: “Truthful, but a mudallis.”
Abū Ḥātim said: “Truthful, yet he performs tadlīs from weak narrators. His hadith should be written down, and when he explicitly says, ‘We were told,’ it is sound—one need not doubt his honesty or retention—but his reports are not to be used as proof. He did not hear from al-Zuhrī, nor from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, nor from ʿIkrimah.”
Hushaym said, “Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah once said to me, ‘Describe al-Zuhrī for me, for I have never seen him.’”
Ibn al-Mubārak remarked, “Ḥajjāj used to practise tadlīs; he would relay to us a hadith from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb that actually came from al-ʿArzamī—and al-ʿArzamī has been discarded.”