—so Muṣʿab said, “Abū Zakariyyā, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd the scribe has related to us such-and-such …,” and he cited a ḥadīth. Yaḥyā replied, “That is a lie.”
Al-Khaṭīb (1) recorded this incident, then remarked: “In our estimation Muḥammad ibn Saʿd is among the upright transmitters, and his ḥadīths bear witness to his truthfulness; he is careful in many of his narrations. It is likely that Muṣʿab repeated to Yaḥyā one of the objectionable reports that al-Wāqidī sometimes narrates, so Yaḥyā deemed it a fabrication.”
Ibn Fahm said: “Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, the disciple of al-Wāqidī, was the client of al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. He died in Baghdad on Sunday, the fourth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, in 230 AH, at the age of sixty-two. He possessed vast learning, an abundance of ḥadīth and narrations, and a large library; he wrote works on ḥadīth, fiqh, and gharīb (2).”
Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Mawāzinī informed us; Abū Sulaymān ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī informed us in the year 622 AH; my father informed us; Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿAbd al-Khāliq informed us; Abū Ṭālib al-Yūsufī informed us; Abū Muḥammad al-Jawharī informed us; Abū ʿUmar ibn Ḥayyūyah informed us; Sulaymān ibn Isḥāq al-Jallāb informed us; al-Ḥārith ibn Muḥammad al-Tamīmī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Saʿd narrated to us; Ibn Abī Fudayk narrated to us, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd—or from Sharīk ibn Abī Namir—from Anas ibn Mālik, who said:
“I have never prayed behind anyone whose prayer more closely resembled that of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ than this young man”—meaning ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.
Al-Ḍaḥḥāk added: “I used to pray behind him. He would lengthen the first two rakʿahs of ẓuhr and shorten the last two; he kept ʿaṣr brief; in maghrib he would recite from the short al-Mufassal passages; in ʿishāʾ he would recite from the middle of al-Mufassal, and he would recite—”