ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd said: “I asked Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn about al-Rabīʿ, and he replied, ‘There is no harm in him.’
I then asked, ‘Which of the two is dearer to you—he or Mubārak ibn Faḍālah?’
He answered, ‘How close they are to each other.’

Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah reported: “Yaḥyā was asked about Mubārak and said, ‘Weak.’ On another occasion I heard him say, ‘Reliable.’ ”

Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ transmitted from Yaḥyā that he said, “There is no harm in him.”

Mufaḍḍal al-Ghallābī likewise related from Yaḥyā that he said, “Acceptable.”

Ḥanbal—and another narrator—reported from Ibn al-Madīnī, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, who said: “In those days we had written down from Mubārak ibn Faḍālah the ḥadīth of al-Ḥasan from ʿAlī: ‘If he names her, she is divorced.’
Yaḥyā added, ‘I accepted nothing from him except what he related with the wording “He narrated to us (ḥaddathanā).” ’ ”

Ibn al-Madīnī said, “His position is middle-of-the-road.”

Al-ʿIjlī said, “There is no harm in him.”

Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī said, “He engages in a great deal of tadlīs; but if he says ‘ḥaddathanā,’ he is reliable.”

Abū Ḥātim remarked, “He is dearer to me than al-Rabīʿ ibn Ṣabīḥ.”

Ibn Abī Ḥātim observed, “The reports from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn about him are inconsistent.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAlī ibn Muqaddam narrated—from Muḥammad ibn ʿArʿarah—that: “Shuʿbah came to Mubārak ibn Faḍālah and asked him about the ḥadīth of Naṣr ibn Rāshid, from Jābir: that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade plastering a grave or building over it (1).”