of my son.’ I looked, and there—sure enough—was my son’s name.

ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Sayyār al-Farhayānī (1) said: “Qutaybah is truthful (ṣadūq); there is not a single senior scholar in Iraq who did not transmit from him.”

Those who narrated from him include Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Abū Khaythamah, ʿAbbās al-Anbarī, and al-Humaydī in Mecca.

I heard ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī say: “I passed by Qutaybah at Minā while ʿAbbās al-Anbarī was writing from him. I went on without taking anything from him, and later I regretted it.”

Aḥmad ibn Sayyār al-Marwazī said: “Abū Rajāʾ Qutaybah was a client of al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf. Qutaybah used to administer the affairs of Thaqīf and would recall the favor his grandfather enjoyed with al-Ḥajjāj: whenever al-Ḥajjāj sat upon his throne, my grandfather would sit on a chair to his right.”

He went on: “Abū Rajāʾ was a man of medium stature, bald, pleasant-faced, with a handsome beard. He was well equipped for travel and wealthy in every sort of livestock—horses, camels, cattle, and sheep—and he possessed an enormous reservoir of hadith.

“He once said to me: ‘Stay with me this winter and I will produce for you one hundred thousand hadiths from five of my teachers.’

“I asked, ‘Perhaps one of them is ʿUmar ibn Hārūn?’

“He replied, ‘No. From ʿUmar ibn Hārūn alone I wrote more than thirty thousand. Rather, they are Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī, Jarīr, Muḥammad ibn Bakr al-Bursānī, and I have forgotten the fifth.’

“And,” he added, “he was reliable.”