—so they coached him, and the report is nowhere to be found in his notebooks; indeed, people have attributed to him fully-chained narrations that are likewise absent from his writings. (1)

I said, “I suspect the text was mis-copied, for the word al-nār (the Fire) can, when written with imālah, appear as al-nīrā with a yāʾ, in the same shape as al-bīr (the well); that is where the scribal error crept in.” (2)

Ibn Abī al-ʿAqib and Abū al-Maymūn related: Abū Zurʿah told us; Maḥmūd ibn Sumayʿ reported to me—he had heard Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ say:
“I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ‘Have you ever encountered hadith superior to those of ʿAbd al-Razzāq?’
He replied, ‘No.’

His scribe added, ‘I do not know what Aḥmad meant by the “excellence” of his hadith—whether he referred to the soundness of the isnād, the wording of the matn, or something else.’

Al-Fasawī said: Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Sarī narrated to us: I asked ʿAbd al-Razzāq, ‘What is your own view’—meaning, on precedence among the Companions.
He refused to tell me and said, ‘Sufyān used to say, “Abu Bakr, then ʿUmar,” and would remain silent.’

Sufyān then said to me, ‘I would like to be alone with Abū ʿUrwah’—that is, Maʿmar. We spoke to Maʿmar and he agreed. Sufyān withdrew with him; when morning came I asked, ‘Abū ʿUrwah, how did you find him?’
He replied, ‘He is a man, yet seldom do you converse frankly with a Kufan without detecting something in him’—meaning a trace of Shiʿite leanings.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq went on to say, ‘Mālik used to say: Abu Bakr, then ʿUmar,’ and would stop there. Maʿmar would say: Abu Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān, and then fall silent; the same was said by Hishām ibn Ḥassān. (3)