And al-Bukhārī said, “I have abandoned him” (1).
Ibn al-Madīnī declared, “No one in Baghdad was more steadfast upon the Sunnah than he” (2).
Ibn al-Ghallābī relates that Ibn Maʿīn branded him “a fraud” (3).
Bashshar himself remarked, “What an excellent appointment tomorrow will be; Ibn Maʿīn and I shall meet” (4).
It is said that he died in 228 AH.
- Abū Bilāl al-Ashʿarī
An eminent imam and traditionist, counted among the scholars of Kūfa.
He related ḥadith from Mālik ibn Anas, Abū Bakr al-Nahshalī, al-Qāsim ibn Maʿn, ʿĀṣim ibn Muḥammad al-ʿUmarī, Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ, Yaḥyā ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, Sharik al-Qāḍī, and others of their rank.
Among those who transmitted from him were Abū Ḥāzim Aḥmad ibn Abī Ghraza, Bishr ibn Mūsā, Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Taghlibī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdak al-Qazzāz, Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd al-Baghdādī, Abū Jaʿfar Muṭayyin, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, and many others.
Al-Dāraqutnī considered him weak.