in my notebooks?’ I replied, ‘No.’
He said, ‘Had he been reliable, you would have found him in my notebooks.’

This remark shows that he would relate only from someone he himself deemed trustworthy. That, however, does not mean he narrated from every trustworthy person, nor does it follow that everyone from whom he transmitted—and whom he regarded as reliable—must be considered reliable by the rest of the ḥadīth critics; something of a shaykh’s true condition might be hidden from him yet evident to others. In any case, he was exceptionally careful in scrutinising transmitters—may Allah have mercy on him.

Ibn al-Barqī said: ʿUthmān b. Kinānah narrated to us, from Mālik, who said:
‘An elder would sometimes sit with us and speak for most of the day, yet we would not take even a single ḥadīth from him. It was not that we distrusted him, but he simply was not one of the people of ḥadīth.’

Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī said: ʿAtīq b. Yaʿqūb narrated to us, “I heard Mālik say:
‘Ibn Shihāb related to us forty-odd ḥadīths; then he said, “Repeat them to me.” I repeated forty of them back to him.’”

Naṣr b. ʿAlī said: Ḥusayn b. ʿUrwah narrated to us, from Mālik, who said:
‘Az-Zuhrī came to us, so we went to him, Rabīʿah accompanying us. He narrated a little over forty ḥadīths. The next day we returned, and he said, “Fetch me a book so that I may relate to you from it. As for what I told you yesterday, how much of it is in your hands?”
Rabīʿah replied, “There is someone here who can repeat back to you what you narrated yesterday.” (1)
He asked, “And who is that?”
He answered, “Ibn Abī ʿĀmir.”
“Very well, let us hear,” he said.
So Ibn Abī ʿĀmir reeled off forty of those ḥadīths.
Az-Zuhrī exclaimed, “I never imagined that anyone besides me still retained this!”