(1) Shuʿubiyya refers to a trend that sought to diminish the standing of the Arabs and to elevate other nations above them. Lisan al-Arab defines a shuʿubi as “one who belittles the Arabs and does not acknowledge any merit for them over others.” Ibn Qutayba—himself a Muslim mawla who nonetheless recognized the virtues of Muslim Arabs—states that the adherents of Shuʿubiyya were the rabble and common folk. In his refutation, fragments of which were published in Muhammad Kurd ʿAli’s Rasail al-Bulagha, p. 270, he writes: “I have found no group more deeply hostile to the Arabs than this lowborn populace, the riff-raff, the coarse Nabateans, and the sons of village serfs.” For a more detailed study, see Al-Alusi, Bulugh al-Arab, 1/159, 184. (2) al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 4/48. (3) Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 2/42. (4) Ibn Hajar remarks in the introduction to Fath al-Bari, p. 383: “His grading the narrator as weak implies that he was not a reliable memorizer.” By contrast, Ibn Maʿin, Abu Zurʿa, and others considered him trustworthy. Al-Bukhari cited only one hadith from him, corroborated by Marwan b. Muʿawiya and Abu Usama, in the Book of Medicine. (*) Additional biographical sources: Ibn Maʿin, Tarikh, p. 339; Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat, 7/290; Khalifa b. Khayyat, Tarikh, p. 458; Khalifa, Tabaqat, no. 1906; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 6/73; al-Tarikh al-Saghir, 2/246; al-Fasawi, al-Maʿrifa wa-t-Tarikh, 1/180; al-ʿUqayli, al-Duʿafa, fol. 252; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-t-Taʿdil, 6/28; Ibn Hibban, Mashahir ʿUlama al-Amsar, entry incomplete in the source.