Ahmad ibn al-Furat said, “Twelve—or perhaps thirteen—people spoke against Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah, yet their criticism gained no ground against him.” (1)
ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī related: “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī once mentioned Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah, and I said, ‘Do not do that, for there are those here who will carry your words elsewhere.’ He replied, ‘I seek Allah’s forgiveness.’ He then withdrew and performed wuḍūʾ—because he held the opinion that backbiting invalidates ritual ablution. (2)
“It was also said that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān faulted him for having erred in the chain of a single ḥadith. Such rigidity is unfair to a ḥāfiẓ who has transmitted many thousands of reports. If, amid his vast learning, he slipped in one isnād, he should be pardoned—as is the case with his peers. We are not claiming that Rawḥ’s level of precision and retention equals that of Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, yet he is certainly no less than ʿAbd al-Razzaq or Abū al-Naḍr.
Al-Kinānī narrated from Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī: “Rawḥ is not to be relied upon.”
Al-Nasāʾī wrote in al-Kunā and again in the midst of the Book of Emancipation: “He is not strong.”
Khalīfah (3) and Muṭayyan stated that he died in 205 AH; others added that it was in Jumādā al-Ūlā. Al-Kudaymī was mistaken when he said he died in 207.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qudāmah the jurist, together with a group of scholars, authorized us to relate that ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad informed us, Hibat Allah ibn al-Ḥuṣayn informed us, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad informed us, Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī narrated to us, Aḥmad ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Narsī narrated to us, Rawḥ narrated to us