Ibn Ḥibbān said at the beginning of his Kitāb al-Ḍuʿafāʾ (Weak Narrators): “Among those who most rigorously scrutinised the condition of the ḥadīth transmitters and were the strictest in shunning the weak and abandoned narrators—so much so that they made this task their exclusive craft, never stepping beyond it, while remaining steadfast in religion, profoundly God-fearing, and deeply learned in the Sunnah—there are two men (1): Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī (2).”

Sahl ibn Ṣāliḥ said: I heard Yazīd ibn Hārūn say, “I found myself between two lions: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī and Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān.”

I say: Ibn Mahdī died in Basra in Jumādā al-Ākhirah, 198 AH.

His father lived on after him. He was an unlettered elder who would sometimes jest ignorantly, pointing to the gathering around his son and then to his own possessions, saying, “This came from that.”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Salm reported: I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar say, “I heard Ibn Mahdī declare, ‘The ordeal of ḥadīth is more severe than the ordeal of wealth and children.’” (3)

Abū Qudāmah said: I heard Ibn Mahdī state, “For me to recognise the hidden flaw in a single ḥadīth is dearer than acquiring ten ḥadīths.” (4)

ʿAbdullāh, the brother of Rustah, said: I heard Ibn Mahdī say, “It is forbidden for a man to issue a fatwa except on something he has heard from a trustworthy authority.” (5)