was likewise a Successor. He reported copiously from Sufyān al-Thawrī, and also from Ibrāhīm ibn Tahmān, Zāʾidah, Shibl ibn ʿAbbād, and a number of others.
Those who narrated from him include: al-Bukhārī (1); Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah—each through an intermediary; al-Dhuhlī; ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd; Ismāʿīl Sammūyah; Aḥmad ibn Shabbūyah; Abū Ḥātim; Ḥammād ibn Isḥāq the judge; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Kaysān al-Maṣṣīṣī; Muḥammad ibn Ghālib Tamtām; Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Iṣbahānī; Ḥafṣ ibn ʿUmar al-Raqqī Sinjah; and many others besides.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal remarked, “He is one of the truthful.”
Abū Ḥātim said, “Reliable; he was known as ‘the Thawrī.’ Sufyān al-Thawrī stayed in Basra at a certain man’s house, and Abū Hudhayfah was with them. Sufyān would send Abū Hudhayfah to run his errands, but he was prone to making transcription errors.”
He transmitted a good ten-odd thousand hadith from al-Thawrī, and in some of them there are issues (2).
(1) In the introduction to Fath al-Bari (p. 446) Ibn Hajar writes: “One of al-Bukhari’s teachers is truthful (*saduq*), yet his memory is somewhat unreliable.”
Ahmad said the same. Ibn Maʿin added, “He was not among the liars.” al-ʿAjli judged him reliable. Abu Hatim stated, “Truthful, but he used to make copyist mistakes; he narrated more than thirteen thousand hadiths from al-Thawri, some of which contain faults, though he errs less than Muʾammal ibn Ismaʿil.” Ibn Khuzaymah declared, “His narrations are not authoritative.” al-Saji remarked, “He misreads texts and is weak,” and al-Tirmidhi concluded that he is weakened in hadith.
I add: al-Bukhari nevertheless includes three of his narrations.
1. In the chapter on manumission, the hadith of Asmaʾ bint Abi Bakr concerning freeing slaves during the solar eclipse, reported with corroborations through al-Rabiʿ ibn Yahya and ʿAtham ibn ʿAli, both from Zaidah, from Hisham ibn ʿUrwah, from his wife Fatimah bint al-Mundhir, from Asmaʾ.
2. In the Book of Heart-Softeners (*riqaq*), the hadith of Ibn Masʿud: “Paradise is closer to any of you than the strap of his sandal, and Hell is likewise,” corroborated by Wakiʿ and others from Sufyan.
3. In the Book of Qadar, the hadith of Hudhayfah: “The Prophet, peace be upon him, delivered a sermon in which he left nothing out until the Hour except that he mentioned it…,” corroborated by Abu Muʿawiyah and Wakiʿ in Sahih Muslim.
This is everything he transmits in Sahih al-Bukhari. Al-Bukhari also cites him once in suspended form at the end of the Book of Jihad, in the narration of Abu Ishaq from al-Baraʾ regarding the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, a report he possesses through other chains from Abu Ishaq.
(2) Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, vol. 8, p. 163.