ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khirāsh said, “ʿAffān is trustworthy, one of the finest of Muslims.” ⦗1⦘

Ibn al-Madīnī remarked, “As for ʿAffān and Abū Nuʿaym, I do not accept their verdicts concerning narrators; they spare no one but invariably pick faults.” ⦗2⦘

That is, he did not prefer their statements of impugnment because of the stringency of their criticism; however, when they declared someone reliable, that commendation was more than sufficient.

ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad related from his father (Imam Aḥmad): “ʿAffān stayed with us for ten years, and he was more accurate than Ibn Mahdī.” ⦗3⦘

Abū Ḥātim said, “ʿAffān is an imam—trustworthy, solid, and precise.” ⦗4⦘

Jaʿfar ibn Abī ʿUthmān al-Ṭayālisī reported: I heard ʿAffān say, “A man may have a ḥadith in his possession and will not bring it out except under the cudgel. I wrote down ten thousand ḥadith from Ḥammād ibn Salama, yet I have not narrated two thousand of them. I wrote six thousand from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād, but have not transmitted a thousand. And I wrote four thousand from Wuhaib, of which I have not conveyed one thousand ḥadith.” ⦗5⦘

I say: No one surpasses ʿAffān in trustworthiness. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAdī did trouble himself by listing him in his book al-Kāmil, but he explained that he only mentioned him in order to defend him, for Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Dāwūd said:

“I heard Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb say, ‘Do you really think ʿAffān could retain what he heard from Shuʿbah? By Allah, even if he strove with all his might to preserve a single ḥadith from him, he would not manage it. He was slow and dull of understanding.’” ⦗6⦘