I were compelled to take an oath between the Corner and the Station, I would swear by Allah that I have never seen anyone more knowledgeable in hadith than ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi.’

Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī heard this statement directly from him (1).

Muḥammad ibn Qaymāz, and others with him, informed us, saying:
ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Lattiyy informed us; Abu al-Waqt informed us; ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Anṣārī informed us; ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Jarrāḥī informed us; Ibn Maḥbūb informed us; Abu ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī narrated to us; I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Nabhan ibn Ṣafwān al-Thaqafī say, “I heard ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī declare: ‘If I were made to swear between the Corner and the Station, I would swear that I have never seen anyone more learned than ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi.’” (3)

Through this same chain to al-Tirmidhī: Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “With my own eyes I have not seen anyone like Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, and ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi is an imam.” (4)

Ziyād ibn Ayyūb al-Ṭūsī related: “We rose from the session of Hushaym. Aḥmad, Ibn Maʿīn, and their companions took a young man by the hand, led him into a mosque, and we wrote hadith from him; that young man turned out to be ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Ṭarsūsī said: “I heard ʿAbd al-Rahman Rusta say: ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi owned a maidservant. A man asked him for her, and he gave what amounted to a promise. When the man later returned, it was said to ʿAbd al-Rahman, ‘This is the litigious fellow.’”