ʿAbd Allah ibn Wahb related, “I invited Yūnus ibn Yazīd to the banquet held for my marriage.”

It has reached us that Imām Mālik used to address his letters to him with the salutation, “To ʿAbd Allah ibn Wahb, the muftī of Egypt,” a courtesy he showed to no one else. ⦗1⦘

Someone once mentioned both Ibn Wahb and Ibn al-Qāsim in Mālik’s presence, and Mālik remarked, “Ibn Wahb is a scholar, whereas Ibn al-Qāsim is a jurist.”

Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamadhānī said, “Ibn Wahb entered a public bath and happened to hear a reciter chanting the verse, ‘And when they dispute with one another in the Fire’ (Q 40:47); he collapsed unconscious.”

Abū Zayd ibn Abī al-Ghamr reported, “We used to call Ibn Wahb the Repository of Knowledge.”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim said, “I heard Abū Zurʿah say, ‘I scrutinised on Ibn Wahb’s behalf some eighty thousand hadiths.’ ⦗2⦘”

I (the author) remark: This is another report traced back to Abū Zurʿah.

Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said, “The grandfather of ʿAbd Allah ibn Wahb was Muslim, the freedman of Rayḥānah, herself the freedwoman of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Unays al-Fihrī. ⦗3⦘”

Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Baḥshal recounted: “The emir ʿAbbād ibn Muḥammad sought out my uncle to appoint him as judge, so my uncle went into hiding. ʿAbbād thereupon demolished part of our house. Al-Ṣabbāḥī said to him, ‘Since when has that fellow ever hoped to be made judge?!’

“When my uncle heard of this, he invoked blindness upon him, and within a week al-Ṣabbāḥī went blind.”