I will not report from Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah. (1)

Yaʿqūb said: I also heard ʿAffān ibn Muslim express displeasure concerning Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah.

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar related to me that he heard ʿAffān—when Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah was mentioned—say, “In my estimation his ḥadith are better than those of Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith and superior to those of Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ; so why have we abandoned him?”—that is, as though he were fault-finding.

Abū Khaythamah replied, “That is no proof. Must everyone you leave off be left? As for Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah, his narrations have been accepted; the issue concerns those who remain.”

Yaʿqūb added: I am convinced that had ʿAffān possessed any conclusive evidence that would topple Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah, he would have produced it on that occasion. (2)

Abū ʿUbayd al-Ājurrī said: I heard Abū Dāwūd remark, “Al-Qawārīrī would not transmit from Rawḥ, and the chief point he censured him for was nine hundred ḥadith he claimed to have heard directly from Mālik.” (3)

Abū Dāwūd also said: I heard al-Ḥulwānī state, “The first to bring out his written collection were Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah and Abū Usāmah.”

Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb commented on this (4): “Meaning, they both narrated material over which they were opposed, so they produced their notebooks as evidence against those who differed with them, for what they recited from memory matched what appeared in their books.”

He further said: Rawḥ was a Basran who came to Baghdad and taught there for a long period, then returned to Basra where he died. He was prolific in narration, authored books on Sunan and legal rulings, compiled a tafsīr, and was deemed trustworthy.