ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khirāsh said, “He used to fabricate ḥadīth.”

Muṭayyan remarked, “He is Moses’s staff; it swallows up what they invent.”

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dāraqutnī said, “He took the book of someone who was not a ḥadīth scholar.”

Abū Bakr al-Barqānī said, “I have continually heard the shaykhs mention that he is criticised.”

From ʿAbdān: “There is nothing wrong with him.”

Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Munādī said, “We used to hear the shaykhs say, ‘The ḥadīth of Kūfah died with the passing of Muḥammad ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṭayyan, Mūsā ibn Isḥāq, and ʿUbayd ibn Ghannām.’ ”

I say: The four of them died in the same year.

Ibn Abī Shaybah passed away in Jumādā al-Ūlā of the year 297 AH, when he was nearly ninety.

Ishāq ibn Ṭāriq informed us; Yūsuf ibn Khalīl informed us; Masʿūd al-Jammāl and Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī informed us—and Ibn Salāmah conveyed to me from the two of them—that Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād informed them; Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ informed us; Saʿd ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Maymūn narrated to us; al-Ḥakam ibn Ẓuḥayr narrated to us, from al-Suddi, from ʿAbd Khayr, from ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—who said:

“When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, passed away, I swore that I would not remove the cloak from my back until I had gathered together what is between the two boards. I did not set it down until I had collected the Qur’an.” (1)