Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī relates: al-Baghawī said, “We were standing at the door of Yaḥyā al-Himmanī when Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn arrived on his mule. The students of ḥadith asked him to narrate to them, but he refused and said, ‘I have come only to greet Abū Zakariyā.’ He went inside, then came out again, and they questioned him about al-Himmanī. He answered, ‘Reliable, the son of a reliable man.’ (1)

Muṭayyin, Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaḥyā, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Dawraqī, and others also transmitted Ibn Maʿīn’s affirmation of his reliability. Muḥammad ibn Abī Hārūn al-Hamadhānī even said, ‘I asked him about him, and he replied, “Reliable, and his father is reliable.”’ I said, ‘Yet people speak ill of him.’ He replied, ‘They envy him. By Allah—there is no deity but Him—he is trustworthy.’ (2)

Al-ʿUqaylī reports from ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: “I heard Yaḥyā al-Himmanī say to some strangers who were present in his gathering, ‘Where are you from?’ When they informed him, he said, ‘Have you heard in your land anyone criticizing me and saying that I am weak in ḥadith? Do not listen to the talk of the Kufans; they envy me, for I was the first to compile a Musnad, and I have outstripped them in more than one area.’” (3)

ʿAlī ibn Ḥakīm said, “I have never seen anyone who memorized the ḥadiths of Sharīk better than Yaḥyā al-Himmanī.” (4)

I say: There is no doubt that he was outstanding in memorization, just as Sulaymān al-Shadhakūnī was, yet he was more restrained than al-Shadhakūnī, and no one has ever claimed that he forged ḥadiths. At most, he might collect odd reports and claim to have transmitted them, narrating them in a manner