any chaste woman, nor have I ever tampered with a single ḥadith.

Zakariyyā al-Sājī relates: “Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad told us; Ibn ʿArʿarah told us:

I was sitting with Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd while Bulbul, Ibn al-Madīnī, and Ibn Abī Khudawayh were present. ʿAlī said to Yaḥyā, ‘What is your verdict on Tāriq and Ibn Muhājir?’

He answered, ‘They are on the same footing.’

Al-Shadhakūnī interjected, ‘We question you about what you do not know, yet you force yourself to answer us in matters you have not mastered. The narrations of Ibrāhīm ibn Muhājir number 500; you possess 100 of them. The narrations of Tāriq are 100, and you have ten.’

Some of us turned to each other and said, ‘This is humiliation.’

Yaḥyā said, ‘Leave him be. If you engage him, I cannot guarantee he will not fling at us something even worse than this.’ (1)

Ibrāhīm ibn Urmah said: “Al-Ṭayālisī was in Isfahān. When he decided to return home he began to weep. People said to him, ‘A man is usually happy when he heads back to his family!’

He replied, ‘You have no idea to whom I am returning—I am going back to the devils in human form: Ibn al-Madīnī, al-Shadhakūnī, and al-Fallās.’ (2)

Ṣāliḥ Jazarah was asked about al-Shadhakūnī and said, ‘I have never seen anyone with a better memory than him!’

He was asked, ‘Then what was he accused of?’

He answered, ‘He used to fabricate ḥadith.’ (3)

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was asked about him and said, ‘He sat in the company of Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, and Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, yet Allah did not allow him to benefit from a single one of them.’ (4)

Ibn Maʿīn said, ‘I tested al-Shadhakūnī and found him to be a liar.’ (5)