is more reliable than Abū Nuʿaym. (1)

Ibn al-Ghallābī said: ʿAffān and his reliability were mentioned to Ibn Maʿīn, who remarked, “I have noted his mistakes in more than one report.” (2)

ʿUmar ibn Aḥmad al-Jawharī relates: I heard Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣāʾigh say, “ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Ibn Abī Shaybah, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and ʿAffān once gathered together. ʿAffān said, ‘Three men are considered weak in three matters: ʿAlī with respect to Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Aḥmad with respect to Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd, and Abū Bakr—that is, Ibn Abī Shaybah—with respect to Sharīk.’ ʿAlī responded, ‘And there is a fourth among them.’ ‘Who is that?’ they asked. He replied, ‘ʿAffān with Shuʿbah.’” Al-Jawharī then added, “All four of them are strong authorities, but that was only banter.” (3)

I say: That was because they had all been writing from the aforementioned teachers while still young.

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “I have not seen a notebook belonging to any of Shuʿbah’s students that contained more transmission formulas—‘he informed us,’ ‘he told us,’ ‘I heard,’ ‘he narrated to us’—than the notebook of ʿAffān, all referring to Shuʿbah.” (4)

Ḥanbal said: I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh about ʿAffān, and he replied, “ʿAffān, Ḥabbān, and Bahz—these are the ones who exercise the greatest care.” He then said, “ʿAffān used to draw Shuʿbah’s attention to particular reports,” and he added, “Of them all, ʿAffān is the most precise when it comes to names.” (5)