and laughter now seized Yaḥyā ibn Aktham, so al-Maʾmūn looked at him in astonishment and asked, “What is the matter with you?”
He replied, “Commander of the Believers! The person pouring out such extravagant praise for the judge of Jabbul is the judge himself.”
Al-Maʾmūn laughed at length and then said to Yaḥyā, “Remove this man from office, for he is a fool.”
As for this ʿAlī, he was one of the senior scholars of Islam.
Birth: sometime in the 120s AH.
He heard hadith from: Yahyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī; Muṭarrif ibn Ṭarif; Hishām ibn ʿUrwa; ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal; al-Mukhtār ibn Fulful; al-Aʿmash; Abū Isḥāq al-Shaybānī; Abū Ḥayyān al-Taymī; Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind; Ajlaḥ ibn ʿAbd Allāh; Ashʿath ibn Sawwār; Burayd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Burdah; Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid; Zakariyyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah; Saʿd ibn Ṭarif al-Iskāf; ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar; Mūsā al-Juhanī; Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād; Abū Mālik al-Ashjaʿī, and many others.
Those who narrated from him include: Khālid ibn Makhlad; Zakariyyā ibn ʿAdī; Muʿallā ibn Manṣūr al-Rāzī; Farwah ibn Abī al-Maghrāʾ; Ismāʿīl ibn Abān al-Warraq; Ismāʿīl ibn al-Khalīl; Bishr ibn Ādam the blind; al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī; Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah; Sahl ibn ʿUthmān; Suwayd ibn Saʿīd; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĀmir ibn Zurārah; ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr; ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah; ʿAlī ibn Ḥakīm al-Ōdī; ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd ibn Masrūq; Muḥriz ibn ʿAwn; Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd al-Muḥāribī; Minjāb ibn al-Ḥārith; Abū Hammām al-Sakūnī; Hannād—and many others besides.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “In hadith he is more accurate than Abū Muʿāwiyah.”
ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd reported: I asked Ibn Maʿīn, “Do you prefer ʿAlī ibn Mus-hir or Abū Khālid al-Aḥmar?” He answered, “ʿAlī is dearer to me.”
I said, “What about ʿAlī and Yaḥyā ibn Abī …”