Muʿāwiyah ibn Qurrah ⦗1⦘ ibn Iyās ibn Hilāl ibn Riʾāb ibn ʿAbd ⦗2⦘ ibn Durayd ibn Aws ibn Suwāʾah ibn ʿAmr ibn Sāriyah ibn Thaʿlabah ibn Dhubyān ibn Thaʿlabah ibn Aws ibn ʿUthmān ibn ʿAmr ibn Udd ibn Ṭābikhah ibn Ilyās ibn Muḍar ibn Nizār ibn Maʿadd ibn ʿAdnān.
Such is the lineage recorded by Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ ⦗3⦘, though other versions have been cited. He was Abū Wāthilah al-Muzanī, the judge of Basra, a member of the generation of the Tābiʿūn whose grandfather had been a Companion. His acumen was proverbial.
He transmitted—through his father from his grandfather—a marfūʿ hadith on modesty; he also narrated from Anas ibn Mālik, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, Nāfiʿ, and Abū Mijlaz. Reporting from him were the two Ḥammāds, Shuʿbah, al-Aṣmaʿī, and others.
Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn said of him: “He is truly perceptive, he is truly perceptive.”
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, al-ʿIjli, Ibn Maʿīn, and al-Nasāʾī declared him trustworthy. Ibn Saʿd ⦗4⦘ added, “Among men he was intelligent and keen-witted,” while al-ʿIjli ⦗5⦘ said, “He was a jurisconsult and a chaste man.”
He reached Damascus in the days of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, visited ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and came again after ʿAdī ibn Arṭāh had dismissed him from the judgeship of Basra.
Abū ʿUbaydah and others relate that Iyās—still a young lad—brought a case against an elderly man before the judge of ʿAbd al-Malik in Damascus. The judge told him, “He is an old man and you are young; do not set yourself on a par with him in speech.”
Iyās replied, “If he is older, the truth is greater than he.”
The judge said, “Be quiet.”
He answered, “If I am silent, who will speak for my proof?”
The judge retorted, “I doubt you will utter a word of right in my court today—stand up and leave!”
Iyās declared, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”
Another version adds that the judge then said, “I think you are wronging him.” Iyās responded, “I did not leave my house on account of what the judge might think of me.”
The judge rose, entered upon ʿAbd al-Malik, and informed him of the incident. ʿAbd al-Malik said, “Settle his case and send him out of Damascus this instant, lest he unsettle the people for me.”
Some say that when ʿAdī ibn Arṭāh removed him from the judiciary of Basra, he fled to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz only to find that he had already died. He then sat teaching in a circle in the Great Mosque of Damascus. A man from Banū Umayyah spoke, Iyās refuted him, and the Umayyad replied harshly. Iyās rose to leave, and people said to the Umayyad, “That is Iyās ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Muzanī.” When the Umayyad returned the next day, he apologized to him.