Ali ibn Humshādh said, “I was in Baghdad at the time when he produced a little over seventy hadiths (1), claiming that no one else shared them with him. Al-Maʿmarī refused to sit in his gathering, and the people split into two factions (2): one siding with al-Maʿmarī and the other with Mūsā. Among al-Maʿmarī’s arguments was his statement, ‘These are narrations I memorised directly from the shaykhs (3); I never copied them down.’

Later, they all concurred in recognising al-Maʿmarī’s integrity and his precedence (4).

Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī said, ‘Al-Maʿmarī possessed a vast store of hadith; he truly was a man of hadith in his own right. ʿAbdān declared that he had never seen anyone like him. As for what has been alleged—that he elevated certain reports and added to their texts—he said: “This is something found specifically among the Baghdadis (5), even in the transmissions of their reliable narrators: they raise what is mawqūf, connect what is mursal, and lengthen the isnād (6).”’

I comment: These are reprehensible traits, and because of them a trustworthy narrator is demoted from the rank of being cited as proof. Had the transmitter merely curtailed a marfūʿ report or rendered a connected chain as mursal, that would have been permissible for him, for it is said: ‘Omit from a hadith, but never add to it.’

Aḥmad ibn Kāmil, the judge, said: Abū ʿAlī al-Maʿmarī (7) died with eleven nights remaining of Muḥarram in the year 295 AH (8).