Isḥāq ibn Rāhawyah, Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī, ʿAlī ibn Khushram, Abū Ḥudhāfah al-Sahmī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbdah, and many others.
Maʿn ibn ʿĪsā remarked, “Al-Darāwardī is worthy to be called the Commander of the Faithful.”
Yahyā ibn Maʿīn said, “He is more reliable than Fulayḥ ibn Sulaymān.”
Abū Zurʿah commented, “His memory is unsound.”
Al-Fallās stated, “Ibn Mahdī transmitted only a single ḥadith from him.”
Al-Athram relates: It was said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh (Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal) that al-Darāwardī reports—through ʿUbayd Allāh, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar—that the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) “used to let the tail of his turban hang down his back” (1). Aḥmad smiled, rejected the report, and said, “This is merely mawqūf—a statement that stops with the Companion.”
Aḥmad also said, “When al-Darāwardī narrates from memory he makes mistakes and is of no consequence, but when he reads from his notebook, then yes, he is acceptable.”
Abū Ḥātim concluded, “He is not to be cited as proof.”
(1) Reported by al-Tirmidhi in al-Shamaʾil (no. 110) and in al-Sunan (no. 1736) through the chain: Harun ibn Ishaq al-Hamdani – Yahya ibn Muhammad al-Madani – Abd al-Aziz al-Darawardi – Nafiʿ – Ibn Umar, who said: “Whenever the Prophet ﷺ donned a turban he let its tail hang between his shoulders.” The isnad is sound (hasan), as al-Tirmidhi remarked. A second chain is found in al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, 11/293, and a third in al-Haythami’s Majmaʿ, 5/120, which he attributes to al-Tabarani in al-Awsat, adding: “Its transmitters are those of the Sahih except for Abu Abd al-Salam, the transmitter from Ibn Umar, and he is reliable.”
Further corroboration: a narration from Thawban, the Prophet’s freedman, preserved by al-Tabarani in al-Awsat, although it contains al-Hajjaj ibn Rushdin, who is weak; a report from Amr ibn Hurayth recorded by Muslim (no. 2821): “It is as though I see the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the pulpit wearing a black turban with both ends hanging down,” and another wording: “its end was between his shoulders”; and a report from Aisha that Gabriel came to the Prophet ﷺ riding a mule, wearing a turban whose tail hung between his shoulders. When she asked the Prophet about him, he said, “Did you see him? That was Gabriel.” Reported by Ahmad 6/148, 152 and al-Hakim 4/193-194, and its isnad is hasan as corroborative evidence.