Bishr ibn Mūsā said, “I heard Ibn Maʿīn declare, ‘Woe to the ḥadīth scholar when the people of ḥadīth consider him weak.’

I asked, ‘What will they do to him?’

He replied, ‘If he is a dullard (1) they will steal his books, corrupt his narrations, shut him up while he is desperate to relieve himself until retention overwhelms him, and then kill him in the worst possible way. But if he is a forceful, stallion-like man, he will make them feel weak, and they will move only within the limits of his commands and prohibitions.’

I said, ‘And what makes him a real man?’

He answered, ‘He knows exactly what comes out of his own head.’

ʿAbbās related, “I heard Yaḥyā explain the phrase, ‘She must not refuse him even if she is on a saddle-pad (2).’ He said, ‘In pre-Islamic times, when a woman was about to give birth she would sit on a saddle-pad so that the delivery would be faster.’ ”

He also remarked, “I am not amazed at the one who narrates and errs, but at the one who gets it right.”

I heard him ask Ḥubbā al-Madaniyyah, “Which kind of men do women find most attractive?” She answered, “The one whose cheek resembles hers.”

Yaḥyā said about zakāt al-fiṭr, “There is no harm in giving it in silver.”

He said regarding someone who prays alone behind the row, “He must repeat the prayer.”

As for one who leads a congregation without ablution, he said, “They need not repeat the prayer, but he must.”

He also told me, “I perform witr with three rakʿahs, and I do not recite the qunūt except in the latter half of Ramaḍān.”