Yūsuf ibn Wāqid said, “I once saw Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah dressed in black, and he had dyed his beard the same color.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs related, “I used to see Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah picking lice from his clothes. He then set out to join the Caliph al-Mahdī and came back in his entourage with forty pack animals, each bearing its loads.”

Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth said, “I heard Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah declare, ‘I have never argued or disputed with anyone.’”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal remarked, “Ḥajjāj engaged in tadlīs (concealing his source). When people asked him, ‘Who narrated this to you?’ he would say, ‘Do not ask it that way; say rather, “Whom did you mention?”’ He also claimed to report from al-Zuhri although he had never met him.”

Shuʿbah said, “Write down what you hear from Ḥajjāj and Ibn Isḥāq, for both are sound memorisers.”

ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Muqaddamī narrates—from Ḥajjāj, from Makḥūl, from Ibn Muḥayrīz: “I asked Faḍālah ibn ʿUbayd, ‘Do you regard hanging the severed hand around the neck as part of the Sunnah?’ He replied, ‘Yes. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was brought a thief; he ordered that the man’s hand be cut off, and then that the hand be suspended from his neck.’ (1)”

Ibn Ḥibbān (2) said, “Ḥajjāj was an overbearing man. He accompanied al-Mahdī to Khurāsān, where the caliph appointed him judge. He died on the return journey, at Rayy, in 145 AH.”

He was abandoned by: Ibn al-Mubārak, Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Ibn Maʿīn, and Aḥmad.