11 – Muhammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿAbsī *
The imam, hadith master, and musnid, Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿAbsī of Kufah.
He heard hadith from: his father, his two uncles – Abū Bakr and al-Qāsim – Aḥmad ibn Yūnus al-Yarbūʿī, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Yaḥyā al-Ḥammānī, Saʿīd ibn ʿAmr al-Ashʿathī, Minjāb ibn al-Ḥārith, al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAmr al-Ḥanafī, Abū Kurayb, Hannād, and many others besides.
Those who transmitted from him include: Ibn Ṣāʿid, Ibn al-Sammāk, al-Najjād, Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, Ibn Abī Dārim, Ismāʿīl al-Khuṭabī, Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī, Saʿd ibn Muḥammad al-Nāqid, Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Ṣawwāf, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿUbayd al-Daqqāq, al-Ismāʿīlī, and many others.
He collected and authored works, producing a large History, but he was not granted favor; rather, people spoke against him.
He was counted among the vessels of knowledge.
Ṣāliḥ Jazarah said: “Reliable.”
Ibn ʿAdī (1) remarked: “I have not found any hadith of his that I would deem objectionable and cite.”
As for ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, he said: “A liar.”