One of the higher-grade isnāds of his narrations has reached me.

Yahyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, however, did not consider him to be of any weight—so said ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī.

ʿAlī went on: “I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī. It was put to him, ‘Will you transmit from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd al-Qaṣīr on the authority of Ibn Luhayʿah?’ He replied, ‘I will not transmit from Ibn Luhayʿah—neither a little nor a lot.’

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān then said, ‘Ibn Luhayʿah once wrote me a letter in which he stated: “ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb narrated to us….” I read the letter aloud to Ibn al-Mubārak, whereupon Ibn al-Mubārak produced from his own notebook the version he had from Ibn Luhayʿah. It read: He informed me that Isḥāq ibn Abī Farwah related from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb (1).’

Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād reported: ‘I heard Ibn Mahdī say, “I attach no weight to anything I have heard from Ibn Luhayʿah’s ḥadith except what was directly heard by Ibn al-Mubārak and similar transmissions.”’

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: ‘Ibn Luhayʿah had first written down a report from al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb; later he began narrating it as though it came straight from ʿAmr himself.’

Al-Layth was two years older than he.

Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī relates—on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam—who said:

‘Haywah ibn Shurayḥ appointed a man as his executor, and Haywah’s books came into that man’s possession. The man did not fear Allah: he would copy from Haywah’s volumes the narrations of those shaykhs whom Ibn Luhayʿah had also met, then bring the copies to Ibn Luhayʿah, who would read them out.

I once attended Ibn Luhayʿah when a group of pilgrims came to greet him. He asked them, “Have you written down any interesting reports?” They began reviewing narrations with him until one of them said, “Al-Qāsim al-ʿUmārī narrated to us, from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ‘When you see a fire, proclaim the takbīr—for saying Allāhu akbar extinguishes it.’”

He remarked, “This is a ḥadith…"