of Egypt, for Ibn Maʿīn voiced his criticism only after exercising his own judgment. He had observed something in the man that, when weighed in terms of uprightness, rendered him “soft,” though not in terms of accuracy, for Aḥmad was in fact precise and firmly reliable. Still, there were reservations about a certain arrogance and self-importance he occasionally displayed—and Allah does not love every arrogant boaster. It may be that Ibn Maʿīn had seen something of this in Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ’s youth, after which the latter repented from it, or from part of it. In later years he grew old, devoted himself to virtue, and was met by al-Bukhārī and the other senior scholars, who relied on his narrations.

As for al-Nasāʾī’s words against him, they sprang from personal resentment: Aḥmad had offended al-Nasāʾī and expelled him from his gathering, so al-Nasāʾī declared, “He is not trustworthy.”

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlīl said: “Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn narrated to us: ‘ʿAffān erred in a little over twenty hadiths. I never informed anyone of them; I told him privately. Khala f ibn Sālim asked me to tell him about them, but I would not, for he was eager to find a fault against ʿAffān.’”

Yaḥyā also said: “Whenever I noticed a mistake in a man, I covered it and wished to present his case in the best light. I never confronted anyone to his face with something he disliked; rather, I would clarify his error to him in private. If he accepted it, well and good; if not, I left him alone.”

Ibn al-Ghalābī reported that Yaḥyā said: “At times I narrate a hadith and then stay awake at night over it, fearing that I may have made an error in it.”

With my chain back to al-Khaṭīb: ʿAlī ibn Ṭalḥah narrated to us, Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī informed us, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥamdān ibn al-Marzubān said: Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī told me, “If you see a Baghdadi who loves Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, know that he is a man of the Sunnah; and if you see him hating Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, know that he is a liar.”

Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Fallās said: “If you see someone disparaging Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, know that he is a liar who fabricates hadith; he despises him only because Ibn Maʿīn exposes the fabricators.”

Al-Abbār relates in his History that Ibn Maʿīn said, “We recorded from the liars and stoked the oven with those writings.”