about two hadiths. He would relate them to me and then ask, “Shall I give you more?” I would reply, “No, not until I have memorised them and mastered them.”

Abu Bakr ibn Shadhān al-Baghdādī said: ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Sawwāq related to us; Jaʿfar ibn Mukram al-Daqqāq related to us; Abu Dawud related to us; Shuʿbah related to us, who said:

“Hushaym and I once set out for Mecca. When we reached Kūfah, Hushaym saw me sitting with Abū Isḥāq and asked, ‘Who is this?’ I answered, ‘The poet of the Sabiʿ tribe.’ After we left I kept saying, ‘Abū Isḥāq has related to us…’ He said, ‘Where did you ever see him?’ I said, ‘He is the one I told you about—the poet of the Sabiʿ.’

“When we finally arrived in Mecca I passed by him while he was sitting with al-Zuhrī, and I said, ‘Abā Muʿāwiyah! Who is this man?’ He answered, ‘A policeman in the service of the Umayyads.’ On our return journey he went on repeating, ‘Al-Zuhrī has related to us…’ I said, ‘And where did you see him?’ He replied, ‘The one you saw sitting with me.’ I said, ‘Show me the notebook.’ He produced it, and I tore it up.”

Al-Mubarrad said: Yazīd ibn Muḥammad al-Muhallabī related to us; he said: al-Aṣmaʿī told me that he heard Shuʿbah say, “I do not know anyone who has scrutinised hadith as thoroughly as I have; I discovered that three-quarters of it is false.”

Ibn al-Mubārak said: I was with Sufyān when the news of Shuʿbah’s death reached him, and he remarked, “Hadith has died.”

I say: Our teacher al-Mizzī, in his Tahdhīb, listed for Shuʿbah three hundred shaykhs and one woman, namely Shumaysah al-ʿAtakiyyah ⦗1⦘. Among the youngest of his shaykhs were Baqiyyah and Ibn ʿUlayyah, his two companions.

Imām Aḥmad said, “In this field Shuʿbah was a nation unto himself.”

ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Muṭahhar said, “I have never seen anyone more deeply devoted to worship than Shuʿbah.”