Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī reported that ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said: “I compiled an exhaustive Musnad, left it at home, and then set out on a journey. Termites got into it, and after that I never again had the resolve to put it back together.”
Abū Yaḥyā Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm related: “Whenever ʿAlī arrived in Baghdad he would take the foremost seat in the circle. Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Muʿayṭī, and others would gather, and the people would debate. If any disagreement arose, ʿAlī would be the one to speak on it.”
Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah said: I heard Ibn Maʿīn remark, “When ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī comes to us he openly upholds the Sunnah, but when he goes to Basra he openly shows a Shiʿi leaning.”
I say: his highlighting the merits of Imām ʿAlī while in Basra was because its people were ʿUthmānīs and inclined against ʿAlī.
Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Yūnīnī (1) informed us; Jaʿfar informed us; al-Silafī informed us; al-Mubārak al-Ṭuyūrī (2) informed us; al-Fālī (3) informed us; Aḥmad ibn Kharrabān informed us; Abū Muḥammad al-Rāmahurmuzī (4) narrated to us; Zanjūyah ibn Muḥammad al-Naysābūrī narrated