ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr—“Visit only every now and then (1).”
I said, “Abū Muḥammad never heard these three ḥadith from those men,” whereupon he became angry.
Al-Baradhīʿī added, “So I asked Abū Zurʿah, ‘What, then, is his status?’”
He replied, “His notebooks are sound; I used to track down his original manuscripts and copy from them. But when he narrates from memory—absolutely not.”
We said to Ibn Maʿīn, “Suwayd is reporting from Ibn Abī ar-Rijāl, from Ibn Abī Rawwād, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar that the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Whoever speaks about our religion on the basis of his own opinion, kill him.’”
Yaḥyā responded, “The first person to whom this should be applied is he himself—let him be killed.”
Someone said to Abū Zurʿah, “Suwayd transmits this through Isḥāq ibn Najīḥ (2).”
He answered, “That report belongs to Isḥāq ibn Najīḥ; Suwayd has merely brought it by way of Ibn Abī ar-Rijāl.”
I said, “But he has also narrated it to others through Ibn Najīḥ.”
He replied, “Perhaps he was corrected, so he recanted.”
Ibn ʿAdī said: “I heard Jaʿfar al-Firyābī say, ‘Abū Bakr al-Aʿyan informed me in Qaṭīʿat ar-Rabīʿ (3), in the year thirty-one (4), in the presence of Abū Zurʿah and a gathering of leading…’”
(1) Hadith: “Visit rarely and your love will grow.” It is transmitted through Ibn ʿAmr and was recorded by al-Tabarani; al-Tabarani in al-Awsat and al-Bayhaqi on the authority of Abu Hurayra; al-Bazzar and al-Bayhaqi in al-Shuʿab from Abu Dharr; al-Tabarani and al-Hakim from Habib ibn Maslama al-Fihri; al-Tabarani in al-Awsat from Ibn ʿUmar; and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi from ʿAʾisha. Several eminent scholars judged the hadith sound because of these corroborating chains. See: al-Maqasid al-Hasana.
(2) The narrator is Ishaq ibn Najih al-Malati, one of the boldest fabricators of hadith. The author places him in al-Mizan, quoting Ahmad who called him “among the greatest liars.” Ibn Maʿin said: “He is notorious for lying and forging hadith.” Al-Nasaʾi and al-Daraqutni declared him “abandoned in hadith.” Al-Fallas stated that he fabricated hadith outright and then cited several of his inventions, including the present report. Ibn ʿAdi listed it in al-Kamil (folio 15) under Ishaq’s entry, adding: “When Yahya ibn Maʿin heard that Suwayd narrated it from Abu’l-Rijal, he said, ‘If I had a sword and shield, I would fight him.’” Yahya spoke thus because Abu’l-Rijal would not be expected to relate such a report, whereas Ishaq ibn Najih would.
(3) The place is attributed to al-Rabiʿ ibn Yunus, the chamberlain and freedman of al-Mansur; it was an agricultural district in al-Karkh frequented by the people.
(4) In al-Kamil the reading is: “two.”