Then Ibn ʿAdī said, “ʿAffān is too well-known and too reliable for anyone to level any charge against him (1). All I have found is that he narrated a few interrupted (mursal) reports from Ḥammād ibn Salamah and others which he connected, and some halted (mawqūf) reports which he elevated to the Prophet. Such matters do not detract from him, for even a trustworthy narrator can err. Indeed, Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ travelled from Egypt for no other purpose than to meet him alone (2).

Al-Fasawī relates in his Tārīkh: Salamah ibn Shabīb said:
“I said to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ‘I went to ʿAffān’s house to find him, but they told me he had gone out. I followed his trail, asking about him, until someone said, “He went this way.” I kept on enquiring until I reached a cemetery, and there he was, sitting and reciting over the grave of the niece of Dhū al-Riyāsatayn (3). I spat at him and said, “Shame on you!” He replied, “Good man, bread, bread!” I retorted, “May Allah never fill your stomach!” Aḥmad then said to me, “Do not speak of this, for during the Inquisition he took a praiseworthy stand,” and words to that effect (4).’”

Al-Ḥasan al-Ḥulwānī said: I asked ʿAffān, “Why did you never write from ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār?”
He answered, “I had been pursuing hadith so relentlessly that it harmed me, so I swore an oath that I would not write any hadith for three days. During those very days ʿIkrimah arrived, narrated his material, and then departed.”

Ibn ʿAdī reported: Zakariyyā al-Sājī told us, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Baghdādī told us, ʿAffān told us, Hammām told us, Qatādah from al-Ḥasan, from