—and may He likewise have mercy on ʿUthmān and ʿAlī; whoever does not love them is no believer, and the deed I trust in most is my love for them. (1)

Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī said: Abū al-Azhar narrated to us; I heard ʿAbd al-Razzāq say:
“I give precedence to the two Shaykhs because ʿAlī himself preferred them to himself; it would be reproach enough for me were I to oppose ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him.” (2)

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Sayyār al-Farhiyānī (3) related: ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, from Zayd ibn al-Mubārak, said: “ʿAbd al-Razzāq was a liar; he used to steal hadith.”

Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī mentioned him in his work al-Kāmil, saying: “They attributed Shīʿism to him, and he transmitted reports on virtues that others did not accept. This is the gravest charge they made against him—his narration of those reports and of disparagements of others that I have not cited. As for reliability, I hope there is no problem with it, save that some of his narrations concerning the Prophet’s Household and the faults of others are objectionable. I heard Ibn Ḥammād say, ‘I heard Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Ṣarrārī …’—then he told the story and Yaḥyā’s remark: ‘Even if he were to apostatize, we would still not abandon his hadith.’ (4)

Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir devoted seventeen folios to the biography of ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and the most outrageous report of his is the one that only the reliable Ahmad ibn al-Azhar transmitted about the merits of Imām ʿAlī; it is virtually fabricated, although Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Sufyān supported him in narrating it.