—namely the claim that “the rebellious faction are the people of Syria.” At this he retorted, “Whoever says that is the son of a fornicator.”

People consequently kept their distance from him for a time, but they later returned and took hadith from him.

I (the author) say: This was a lapse prompted by partisan zeal, or perhaps he meant—by such a sharp rebuke—to silence the quarrel and scatter the agitators.

Abu ʿUbayd al-Ājurrī said: I heard Abu Dawud state, “Duḥaym is an unimpeachable authority; in his day Damascus had no one like him.”

Al-Marwadhi said: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal commend Duḥaym, saying, “He is intelligent and steady.”

Al-Daraqutni said: “Reliable.”

Abu Ahmad Ibn ʿAdiyy said: “He is more trustworthy than Harmalah.”

I add: Among his contemporaries were Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman, Sulayman ibn Ahmad al-Wasiti, Hisham ibn ʿAmmar, and Muhammad ibn Abi al-Sari al-ʿAsqalani.

A high-level chain from him has reached me in the hadith entitled “The Description of the Hypocrite.”

Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Kindi reported that a letter from the caliph al-Mutawakkil reached Duḥaym ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Ibrahim, the client of Yazid ibn Muʿawiyah, while he was serving as judge of Palestine. The letter ordered him to proceed to Egypt to assume its judiciary, but he died in Palestine on a Sunday in Ramadan, in the year 245 AH.

His son ʿAmr ibn Duḥaym, along with others, recorded the same date for his passing.

When al-Mutawakkil later settled in Damascus after 240 AH and built the famed palace between al-Mizzah and Darayya, he learned of Duḥaym’s merit and his expertise in the Sunnah, so he decreed that Duḥaym be appointed judge over the Egyptian provinces—yet death overtook him first.

He passed away on the seventeenth of Ramadan.