Abū al-Rabīʿ Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī related: I heard Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Mahrawayh say, “I heard ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Junayd say, ‘I heard Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn remark,

“We censure certain men who— for all we know— may have been resting their saddlebags in Paradise for more than two hundred years.”’”

Ibn Mahrawayh continued: “I then visited Ibn Abī Ḥātim while he was reading his book al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl (Impeachment and Validation) aloud to the people. I told him this anecdote; he burst into tears, his hands trembled until the book dropped from them, and he kept weeping and asking me to repeat the story— or words to that effect.”

Al-Ḥusayn ibn Fahm said: “I heard Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn say, ‘I was born in the caliphate of Abū Jaʿfar, in the year 158 AH, at its close.’”

The author adds: He set out on his journeys at the age of fifty-six, travelling to Egypt and Syria. There he met Abū Mushir, Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam, the scribe of al-Layth, and others whose reports were being heard in those lands at that time.

ʿAbbās al-Dūrī said: “When he died, he was carried on the Prophet’s bier, and a herald walked before him proclaiming, ‘This is the man who used to purge falsehood from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’”

Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Kuzāl said: “I was with Ibn Maʿīn in Medina; he fell ill and died there. He was borne on the couch of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while a man called out ahead of him, ‘This is the one who banished lies from the ḥadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’”

Al-Khaṭīb said: “Among those who transmitted from Ibn Maʿīn were Muḥammad ibn Saʿd and Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Tammār. Ninety-five years, or more, separated their deaths.”

The author remarks: This al-Tammār was the last person who claimed to have met Yaḥyā; he lived on until the year 325 AH.

In the same year that Ibn Maʿīn passed away, Abū Ṭālib ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn ʿĀṣim died in Baghdad, and ʿAlī