ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal transmitted, on the authority of his father, who said: “I entered Basra on my first visit, in Rajab of the year 186 AH. By that time Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal had already become speechless, and he died in 187 AH.”
I add: he was one of those who died in the eighties (i.e., the decade 180–189 AH).
One of his narrations that has reached me with an elevated chain is as follows:
I read to Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muʿaddil. He said, “The Imām Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad, in the year 616 AH, informed you that the preacher of Mosul Abū al-Faḍl ibn al-Ṭūsī, Shuhda the copyist (1), and Tajannī al-Wahbāniyyah (2) narrated to us, saying:
Ṭirād ibn Muḥammad al-Zaynabī informed us. And I read to Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Saʿdī, who told you that ʿAlī ibn Mukhtār said:
Abū Ṭāhir al-Salafī informed us; al-Qāsim ibn al-Faḍl informed us; they said:
Hilāl ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥaffār informed us; al-Ḥusayn ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAyyāsh informed us; Abū al-Ashʿath Aḥmad ibn al-Miqdām al-ʿIjlī, in the year 249 AH, narrated to us; he said: Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal narrated to us; he said: Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Jabalah ibn Suḥaym, from Ibn ʿUmar, that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:
“Whoever drags his garment out of arrogance, Allah will not look at him.” (3)
(1) Shahda bt. Abi Nasr Ahmad b. al-Faraj al-Dinawari, later al-Baghdadi, known as the scribe and hadith transmitter Fakhru n-Nisa (“Pride of Women”). A pious and devout woman, her father received a large number of narrations from her, and she eventually became the leading musnida of Iraq. She transmitted from Turad, al-Naʿali, Ibn al-Batr, and others. Renowned for her charity and righteousness, she died on 14 Muharram 574 AH, aged a little over ninety. See: al-Ibr, 4/220.
(2) In the printed edition of al-Ibr, 4/223, her name was mistakenly given as “al-Wahhabiyya.” The correct form is Tajani, a long-lived female hadith scholar who transmitted rare elevated isnads and belonged to the same generation as Shahda al-Katiba. She narrated from Abu l-Khattab Nasr b. Ahmad, Turad b. Muhammad al-Zaynabi, and al-Hasan b. Ahmad al-Naʿali. Among those who received and reported from her were Ahmad b. Abi l-Fath b. al-Khidr al-Tanukhi and Sayyida bt. ʿAbd al-Rahim al-Suhrawardi. The author of al-Ibr calls her Umm ʿUtb and notes that she was the last person on earth to transmit, with direct audition, from Turad and al-Naʿali. She died in Shawwal 575 AH.
(3) The chain of transmission is sound. Ahmad (2/81) and Muslim (2085, no. 43) also recorded it through Muhammad b. Jaʿfar, from Shuʿba, with this same isnad. The term al-mukhila denotes arrogance or pride.