Ibn Wahb related: “I once saw ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿUmar—he had gone blind and had given up teaching ḥadith—and I saw Hishām ibn ʿUrwah sitting in the Prophet’s Mosque. I said to myself, ‘I shall hear from Ibn Samʿān first and then go over to Hishām.’

When I had finished, I went to Hishām’s house, but they told me, ‘He has gone to sleep.’ So I said, ‘I will perform the pilgrimage and come back.’ I returned—only to find that he had died (1).

Such is the wording of this report, even though Hishām actually passed away in Baghdad; perhaps he travelled to Baghdad later on.

Muḥammad ibn Salamah said: I heard Ibn al-Qāsim remark, “Had Ibn ʿUyaynah died, people would have spurred their camels all the way to Ibn Wahb; no one recorded knowledge as thoroughly as he did (2).”

Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā transmitted from Ibn Wahb that he said, “Nāfiʿ ibn Abī Nuʿaym taught me to recite.”

Abū Zurʿah said: “I examined something like thirty thousand hadiths narrated by Ibn Wahb and I do not know of a single report of his that lacks a basis. He is reliable. I also heard Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr say, ‘Ibn Wahb has deeper understanding than Ibn al-Qāsim’ (3).”

I say: The Muwattaʾ of Ibn Wahb is large—I have not seen it. He also authored al-Jāmiʿ, the Book of the Pledge, the Book of Pilgrimage Rites, the Book of Military Expeditions, the Book on Apostasy, the Explanation of Unfamiliar Terms in the Muwattaʾ, and other works besides.

Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ, the ḥāfiẓ, said: “Ibn Wahb narrated one hundred thousand hadiths; I have never seen anyone relate more than he did. Seventy thousand of his hadiths have reached us (4).”

I say: How could he not be one of the oceans of knowledge, when he combined with his own learning the knowledge of