Abu ʿUbayd, Ibn al-Madīni, Ibn Maʿīn, Ibn Numayr, al-Bukhārī, and others said that he died in the year 187 AH, in Mecca. Some of them added: at the very beginning of Muḥarram. Hishām ibn ʿAmmār said: on the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ of that month.

I say: He was a little over eighty years old. He is an authoritative narrator of high standing, and no weight should be given to what Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah transmitted—“I heard Qutbah ibn al-ʿAlāʾ say, ‘I abandoned the hadiths of Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ because he reported narrations that disparaged ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān.’ ”

I further say: We take no notice of Qutbah’s remark; would that he had occupied himself with his own state, for al-Bukhārī said of him, “He is questionable,” and al-Nasāʾī and others said, “Weak.” Moreover, Fuḍayl was a man devoted to the sunnah and strict adherence to it.

Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah said: ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Yazīd al-Ṣāʾigh related to us: It was mentioned in al-Fuḍayl’s presence—while I was listening—the Companions, whereupon he said, “Follow them, for you have been spared: Abu Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with them.”

I say: When the Rafidites and the Khārijites have spoken against the eminent leaders of the earliest generation, and when a man like al-Fuḍayl is criticized, who then is safe from people’s tongues? Once a man’s leadership and merit are firmly established, what is said about him does not harm him. Criticism of scholars must be weighed with justice and piety.

As for Ibn Mahdī’s statement, “He was not a ḥāfiẓ,” it only means that he did not reach the level of those ocean-like masters of hadith—Shuʿbah, Mālik, Sufyān, Ḥammād, Ibn al-Mubārak, and their peers. Even so, he is reliable, accurate in what he transmitted, and, so far as I know, no fault has ever been found with any of his hadiths.

And what, after all, is desired from knowledge except what al-Fuḍayl—may Allah have mercy on him—had already attained?