Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I asked my father, “Whom do you prefer as a transmitter of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, al-Qaʿnabī or Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways?” He answered, “Al-Qaʿnabī; I have never seen anyone more humble than he.” (1)
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Qazwīnī—the weak narrator—reported from al-Maymūnī: “I heard al-Qaʿnabī say, ‘I kept company with Mālik for thirty years. There is not a single hadith in the Muwaṭṭaʾ but that, if I wished, I could say I heard it many times.’” (2)
ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn al-Faḍl said, “My eyes have never seen the like of four men…,” and he counted al-Qaʿnabī among them. (3)
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad informed us—Ḥanbal informed us—Ibn al-Ḥuṣayn informed us—Ibn al-Mudhhib informed us—Abū Bakr al-Qaṭīʿī, al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥabbāb, al-Qaʿnabī, Shuʿbah, and Manṣūr, from Ribʿī, from Abū Masʿūd—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“Among the sayings that people have preserved from the earliest prophetic wisdom is this: ‘If you feel no shame, then do as you wish.’” (4)
(1) Al-Jarh wa al-Taʿdil, vol. 5, p. 181.
(2) Tahdhib al-Kamal, folio 742; the continuation reads: “I restricted myself to having him listen to my recitation, because Malik held that a student’s reading to the scholar is more reliable than the scholar’s reading to the student.”
(3) Tahdhib al-Kamal, folio 742.
(4) The isnad is sound; all its transmitters are found in the two Sahih collections. Mansur is Ibn al-Muʿtamir, Rabiʿ is Ibn Hirash, and Abu Masud is ʿUqba b. ʿAmr al-Ansari al-Badri. Ahmad (5/273) and Abu Dawud (no. 4797) transmit it through al-Qanabi with this chain. Al-Bukhari records it (6/380; 10/434) through Ahmad b. Yunus from Zuhayr from Mansur, and again (6/380–381) through Adam from Shuʿba. Ibn Majah (no. 4183) narrates it via ʿAmr b. Rafiʿ from Jarir from Mansur. Ahmad also includes it (4/121) through Ruh from Shuʿba and al-Thawri, and (4/122) through ʿAbd al-Rahman from Sufyan from Mansur. The word al-awwal (“the first”) is not found in al-Bukhari’s version; Abu Dawud, Ahmad, and Ibn Majah instead have al-ula (“the former”). Ibn Hajar explains in Fath al-Bari that it refers to the community that preceded our Prophet, peace be upon him.