Al-Shāfiʿī said, “Had it not been for him, hadith would never have been known in Iraq.”

Imam Aḥmad declared, “In this discipline he was a nation unto himself; in his lifetime there was no one like him.”

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd stated, “He was reliable, trustworthy, an indisputable proof, a master of hadith.”

Wakīʿ said, “I hope that Allah will raise Shuʿbah by many degrees in Paradise for the way he defended the hadith of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him.”

Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad Jazrah observed, “Shuʿbah was the first to scrutinise the transmitters, after whom came Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, then Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn.”

Ibn al-Mahdī remarked, “I have never seen anyone more intelligent than Mālik, more austere than Shuʿbah, more sincerely devoted to the ummah than Ibn al-Mubārak, or more knowledgeable of hadith than al-Thawrī.”

Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm said, “Whenever I visited Shuʿbah at the time of prayer I found him praying. He was a father to the poor—indeed, a mother to them.”

Al-Naḍr ibn Shumayl said, “I never saw anyone more compassionate toward the destitute. When he spotted a poor man, he would keep looking at him until the man passed out of sight.”

Another observer said, “I never met a more devoted worshipper. He worshipped Allah until his skin clung to his bones.”

Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān stated, “I never found anyone more tender-hearted toward the needy. A pauper would enter his house and he would give him whatever he could.”

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd and others reported that he died in Basra at the beginning of 160 AH, aged seventy-eight.

[Then came the year 161 AH]

In that year Thumāmah ibn al-Walīd led the summer campaign (ṣāʾifah). He encamped at Dābiq, where the Byzantines massed against him, so the Muslims were unable, because of that, to penetrate further into their lands.

That same year al-Mahdī ordered the digging of rakāyā (wells), the construction of maṣāniʿ (reservoirs), and the building of quṣūr (rest-houses) along the road to Mecca. He appointed Yaqṭīn ibn Mūsā over the project, and the work continued for ten years, until 171 AH, so that the route from Iraq to the Ḥijāz became one of the easiest, safest, and most pleasant of all roads.

In that year al-Mahdī also enlarged the Great Mosque of Basra on its qiblah side and its western flank.

He further wrote to all the provinces that no maqṣūrah (enclosed space) was to remain in any congregational mosque and that every pulpit was to be reduced to the height of the pulpit of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him. This order was carried out in every city.

During the same year the standing of Abū ʿUbayd Allah, al-Mahdī’s vizier, declined when his treachery became apparent to the caliph. Al-Mahdī therefore placed someone over him to keep a close watch on his conduct.