he also met Abu Ishaq al-Sabiʿi.
He transmitted from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr, Layth ibn Abi Sulaym, Ibrahim ibn Muhajir, ʿAmr ibn Qays al-Mulaʾi, Kathir al-Nawwaʾ, Ismaʿil ibn Abi Khalid, and a number of others.
Those who narrated from him include Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah, Muhammad ibn Tarif, Ibrahim ibn Saʿid al-Jawhari, ʿUmar ibn Shabbah, Saʿdan ibn Nasr, al-Hasan ibn ʿAli ibn ʿAffan, and many more.
Abu Zurʿah said: “His reports are soft.”
Abu Zurʿah also said: “He is not reliable.” (1)
Abu Hatim stated: “He is not to be taken as evidence.” (2)
Al-Nasaʾi and others said: “He is not strong.” (3)
Ibn Hibban observed: “He was truthful, but he makes many mistakes despite his few narrations.” (4)
I say: This is a contradiction, for a truthful narrator does not err so frequently, and someone who makes many mistakes while relating little is to be abandoned. He has a single hadith in Sunan Ibn Majah (5), namely
(1) Tahdhib al-Kamal, folio 1014.
(2) al-Jarh wa-al-Ta'dil, 6/115.
(3) Tahdhib al-Kamal, folio 1014.
(4) al-Majruhin wa-al-Du'afa', 2/90.
(5) Hadith: “The divorce of a slave-woman is two pronouncements, and her waiting period is two menstruations,” reported by Ibn Majah (2079) in the Book of Divorce, chapter “Divorce and 'idda of a slave-woman,” through 'Umar b. Shabib – 'Abd Allah b. 'Isa – 'Atiyyah al-Awfi – Ibn 'Umar. The isnad is weak because both the narrator under discussion and his shaykh 'Atiyyah are unreliable. After citing it in his Sunan, p. 441, al-Daraqutni commented: “It is solely transmitted by 'Umar b. Shabib al-Musalli, and he is weak; his report is not dependable.” The sound version is the mawquf statement of Ibn 'Umar, narrated by Nafi' and Salim, recorded in al-Muwatta' 2/574: “If a slave divorces his wife twice, she becomes forbidden to him until she marries another man, whether she is free or a slave; the 'idda of a free woman is three menstruations, and that of a slave-woman is two.” A marfu' narration on the same subject from 'A'ishah appears in Abu Dawud (2189), al-Tirmidhi (1182), Ibn Majah (2080), al-Hakim 2/205, and al-Bayhaqi 7/370, but its chain includes Muzahir b. Aslam, who is weak.