Al-Fallas said, “ʿAbd al-Rahman at first used to relate from Qays, then he abandoned him.”

Ibn Maʿin said, “He is of no standing.” (1) On another occasion he said, “He is regarded as weak.”

Ahmad ibn Hanbal also declared him weak, and al-Nasaʾi said, “He is abandoned.”

I say: He does not deserve to be set aside, for Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā said, “I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd say, ‘In our view Qays was in no way beneath Sufyān. Yet he accepted office, carried out the prescribed punishment on a man who then died, and his reputation was extinguished.’”

Mahmūd ibn Ghailān said: Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd narrated to us, “Al-Manṣūr appointed Qays as governor of al-Madāʾin. He used to hang women by their breasts and set hornets upon them.”

Abū al-Walid said: Sharik attended the funeral of Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ and remarked, “He has left no one like him behind.” Abū al-Walid also said, “I recorded six thousand hadiths from Qays.”

Salm ibn Qutaybah reported: Shuʿbah said to me, “Catch up with Qays; do not let him slip away.”

Abū Dawud said: I heard Shuʿbah say, “Are you not amazed at this cross-eyed fellow? He criticises Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ”—meaning Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān.

Abū Ḥātim said, “He is not to be cited as proof.”

Qurad reported: I heard Shuʿbah say, “Whenever we went to any shaykh in Kūfah, we found that Qays had …”