and used them to fire the oven, bringing out perfectly baked loaves.

Abū Dāwūd said, “I heard Yaḥyā remark, ‘While I was recovering from an illness, I once ate a lump of raw bread dough.’”

Al-Dūrī said: Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn was asked about eating heads, and he replied, “Three shared between two is acceptable.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥibbān relates: Yaḥyā al-Aḥwal told me, “We went out to meet Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn on his return from Mecca. We asked him about al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥibbān, and he said, ‘When he was at his final breath he said to me, “Abū Zakariyyā, do you see what is written on the tent?” I answered, “I see nothing.” He replied, “Indeed I see it: ‘Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn will judge—or decide—between the oppressors.’” Then his soul departed.’”

Al-Khaṭīb reports—Abū Nuʿaym told us, Abū Shaykh narrated to us, Isḥāq ibn Bunān narrated, and I heard Ḥubaysh ibn Mubashshir say:
“Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn used to perform Ḥajj, travelling to Mecca by way of Medina and returning along the same route. On the last pilgrimage he made, he came back through Medina, stayed there two or three days, and then set out with his companions. They halted for the night, whereupon in his sleep he heard a voice calling, ‘Abū Zakariyyā, are you turning away from my neighborhood?’
“When morning came he said to his companions, ‘Continue on; I am returning to Medina.’ They went on while he turned back, remained there three days, and then died.
“He was carried on the Prophet’s ﷺ own bier; the people performed the funeral prayer for him, all the while saying, ‘This is the man who warded off lies from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’”

Al-Khaṭīb adds: “The sound report is that he actually died on the outward journey, before reaching Ḥajj.”

ʿAbbās al-Dūrī said, “I heard Yaḥyā say, ‘Had we not written a hadith fifty times, we would never have mastered it.’”

And the History of Damascus records—through the transmission of Muḥammad ibn Naṣr—that Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn