Only Ibn Abī Dāwūd is known to have transmitted a single hadith from him.

Al-Jāḥiẓ’s writings are extraordinarily numerous. Among them are:
• al-Radd ʿalā Aṣḥāb al-Ilhām (Refutation of the Claimants to Inner Inspiration),
• al-Radd ʿalā al-Mushabbihah (Refutation of the Anthropomorphists),
• al-Radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā (Refutation of the Christians),
• al-Tufayliyya (The Parasites),
• Faḍāʾil al-Turk (The Virtues of the Turks),
• al-Radd ʿalā al-Yahūd (Refutation of the Jews),
• al-Waʿīd (Divine Threat),
• al-Ḥujjah wa al-Nubuwwah (Proof and Prophethood),
• al-Muʿallimīn (The Schoolteachers),
• al-Buldān (The Lands),
• Ḥānūt ʿAṭṭār (The Perfumer’s Shop),
• Dhamm al-Zinā (Censure of Fornication),
and many others.

Ahmad ibn Salamah wrote to us, conveying it from Ahmad ibn Ṭāriq; al-Silafī informed us; al-Mubārak ibn al-Ṭuyūrī related; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ṣūrī dictated; Khalaf ibn Muḥammad, the ḥāfiẓ of Ṣūr, narrated; Abū Sulaymān ibn Zabr transmitted; and finally Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd said:

“I came to al-Jāḥiẓ and asked permission to see him. He looked down at me through a small opening in his house and said, ‘Who are you?’

“I replied, ‘A man from the people of hadith.’

“He said, ‘Do you not know that I disassociate myself from the al-Hashwiyya?’

“I said, ‘I am the son of Abū Dāwūd.’

“He answered, ‘Welcome to you and to your father. Come in.’

“When I entered, he asked, ‘What do you want?’

“I said, ‘Relate a single hadith to me.’

“He said, ‘Write: Ḥajjāj ibn al-Minhāl narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated to us, from Thābit, from Anas: that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed over a ṭinfisah (1).’

“I said, ‘Give me another hadith.’ He replied, ‘It is not fitting for the son of Abū Dāwūd to lie.’

“I remark: Al-Jāḥiẓ has spared us much effort, for he transmitted only a very small number of hadiths, and he is not suspected with regard to their authenticity. Yet his anecdotes and his manner of speech leave one somewhat uneasy; at times he exaggerated, and his being tainted by more than one innovation is unmistakable. Even so, he was a brilliant scholar of reports, a man of many fields, dazzling literary accomplishment, and manifest intelligence—may Allah pardon him.”