He said, “So if it is not like that, then give me some rest—and rest from me.”
He (Shuʿbah) would also say, “No, by Allah, do not weary me with a lisping tongue.” This was related by Shuʿayb ibn Ḥarb.
Abbas al-Dūrī said: I asked Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn about Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah and Abū ʿAwānah, and it seemed he placed them on the same level. I then asked, “And Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah?” He replied, “He is more exact than Zuhayr.” I said, “People say that Zāʾidah showed his notebooks to Sufyān.” He answered, “There is no harm in that; he would discard what was defective and add nothing to his books.”
Someone asked Yaḥyā, “Which of the two is more reliable, Zuhayr or Wuhaib ibn Khālid?” He said, “There is in each of them nothing but reliability.” (1)
I said: Among those who narrated from him were Ibn Jurayj and Ibn Isḥāq—both older than he—Zāʾidah, Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn Mahdī, Abū Dāwūd al-Tayālisī, al-Ḥasan al-Ashyab, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bukayr, Abū Nuʿaym, Abū Jaʿfar al-Nufaylī, Aḥmad ibn Yūnus, Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Naysābūrī, Abū al-Walīd al-Tayālisī, ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd, Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, al-Haytham ibn Jamīl, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Wāqid, and many others; the last of them was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr al-Bajalī, the teacher of Abū ʿArūbah al-Ḥarrānī.
Al-Khaṭīb said in his book As-Sābiq wa al-Lāḥiq: “The last person to transmit from Zuhayr was ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Ḥarrānī, an elder who lived on until 244 AH.”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah is one of the mines of knowledge.”
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī said, “We prefer Zuhayr to Isrāʾīl in every respect except in the ḥadith he narrates from his grandfather Abū Isḥāq.”
It was said to Abū Ḥātim, “What of Zāʾidah as compared with Zuhayr?” He answered, “Zuhayr is more precise, and he is the master of…"