So ʿAbd al-Rahman said to him, “It has reached me that you engage in religious disputation.”

The man replied, “Abu Saʿid, we only adopt their arguments so that we can use them to refute them.”

ʿAbd al-Rahman said, “Do you ward off falsehood with falsehood? All you are doing is countering words with words. Leave me; by Allah, I will never sell you my maid.”

Ibn al-Madini related that ʿAbd al-Rahman used to say, “Shun anyone who is a leader of an innovation and calls others to it (1).”

Ibn al-Madini also said, “I entered the house of ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi’s wife—­I continued to visit her after his death—­and I saw a dark mark in the direction of the qiblah. I asked, ‘What is this?’

“She replied, ‘It is the spot where ʿAbd al-Rahman would rest. He would pray at night, and when drowsiness overcame him he would place his forehead there.’”

It is reported from Ibn Mahdi that he said, “Whoever pursues Arabic grammar ends up a schoolmaster; whoever pursues poetry ends up a poet who satirizes or praises with falsehood; whoever pursues speculative theology (kalam) ends up in heresy; but whoever pursues hadith—if he fulfills its requirements he becomes an imam, and if he is remiss yet later repents, people will still turn to him, for by then it will have matured and become sound.”

Yahya ibn Yahya said, “I used to ask ʿAbd al-Rahman about the shaykhs of Basra.”

More than one transmitter quoted ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi as saying, “The Jahmites wanted to deny that Allah spoke to Moses and that He ascended over the Throne….”