and among those who transmitted from him were: Abū al-Walīd, Musaddad, Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā, Bishr ibn Muʿādh al-ʿAqadī, Ziyād ibn Yaḥyā al-Ḥassānī, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, ʿAmr al-Fallās, Naṣr ibn ʿAlī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Qawārīrī, Wahb ibn Baqiyyah, and many others besides them.
Abū Bakr al-Asadī relates from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who said, “In Basra, the pinnacle of careful verification is Bishr.”
Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ said: I asked Ibn Maʿīn, “Who is the most reliable of the shaykhs of Basra?” He answered, “Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, along with a group whose names he mentioned.”
Ibn Abī Dāwūd said: I heard my father say, “There is no scholar who has not erred in his narrations except Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal and Ibn ʿUlayyah.”
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm reports from ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī: “Bishr used to perform four hundred units of prayer every day and would fast one day and break the fast the next. When someone from the Jahmiyyah (1) was mentioned in his presence, he said, ‘Do not mention that unbeliever.’”
Abū Zurʿah, Abū Ḥātim, and Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī all declared, “He is reliable.”
Ibn Saʿd said, “He was trustworthy, abundant in hadith, and he inclined toward ʿUthmān. He died in the year 186 AH.” (2)