17 – Mufaddal ibn Faḍāla ibn ʿUbayd al-Qitbānī, the Egyptian (ʿ)—
The Imām, erudite scholar, authoritative proof, exemplar, and judge of Egypt; Abū Muʿāwiyah al-Qitbānī al-Miṣrī.

He transmitted ḥadith from ʿAyyāsh ibn ʿAbbās al-Qitbānī, Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb, ʿAqīl ibn Khālid, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sulaymān al-Ṭawīl, Yūnus ibn Yazīd, and a number of others.

Those who reported from him include Ḥassān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Wāsiṭī al-Miṣrī, Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Kātib, Muḥammad ibn Rumḥ, Yazīd ibn Mawhib al-Ramlī, Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā—secretary to al-ʿUmari—and others besides them.

Yahyā ibn Maʿīn and other authorities declared him reliable. Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, however, dissented and said, “His ḥadith are objectionable.”

Ibn Yūnus recorded him in his History, commenting: “He was a man of religion, scrupulousness, and merit.”

Abū Dāwūd said, “His supplication was answered. Ibn Wahb did not transmit from him because he had issued a legal judgment against him.”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥakam narrated, on the authority of a shaykh:

A man met al-Mufaddal after he had been removed from office and said to him, “You judged against me unjustly; you did this and that.”

He replied, “Yet the one in whose favor I ruled continues to speak well of us.”