He was an imām, an undisputed authority, and a model both in knowledge and in practice.

Al-Khalīlī relates that al-Shāfiʿī said, “I know of no one his equal in this discipline.”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal declared, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is more learned in jurisprudence than Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān.” (1)

He also said, “When ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Wakīʿ differ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is the more reliable, because his manuscript is the more recent. The two of them disagreed over about fifty ḥadiths of al-Thawrī. We examined them and found that, in most cases, accuracy lay with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.” (2)

Ayyūb ibn al-Mutawakkil said, “Whenever we wanted to behold an example of both religion and worldly life, we would go to the house of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī.” (3)

Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī relates: “I heard Ibn al-Madīnī say, ‘The person most knowledgeable of ḥadith is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī.’ I said to him, ‘I have already written the ḥadith of al-Aʿmash and thought I had exhausted them. Who could possibly add to my knowledge about al-Aʿmash?’ He replied, ‘Who could add to your knowledge about al-Aʿmash?’ I said, ‘Indeed—who?’ He lowered his head for a moment and then cited thirty ḥadiths I did not possess. He had pursued the narrations of shaykhs whom I had not met and from whom I had never written anything at a lower level of transmission.” Ismāʿīl added, “Among those narrations I have memorized are those of Manṣūr ibn Abī al-Aswad.” (4)

Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Muqaddamī said, “I have never seen anyone more meticulous—about what he had heard, about what he had not heard, and about other people’s ḥadith—than ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī.” (5) An imām,