Will the branch of the people of knowledge ever bear fruit again, now that Imām Abū al-Maʿālī is gone?

Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad (1)
Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Walīd.
He was the leading shaykh of the Muʿtazilites and used to teach on their behalf, a practice for which the Ahl al-Sunnah reproached them. He therefore remained confined to his house for fifty years, until he died in Dhū al-Ḥijjah of this year and was buried in the Shūnīziyya cemetery.

He is the very scholar who engaged in a public debate with Shaykh Abū Yūsuf al-Qazwīnī, the Muʿtazilite Qurʾānic exegete, about whether the youthful servants (wildān) in Paradise may be lawfully enjoyed, [and whether the people of Paradise may have anal intercourse with those youths], as Ibn ʿAqīl relates—he himself being present at their discussion. This man inclined toward permissibility on the grounds that no corruption could ensue there, whereas Abū Yūsuf replied, “Such a thing will never be allowed—neither in this world nor in the Hereafter. And how do you even know that they will possess anuses? That organ was created in this world solely as an outlet for impurity [because the servants need it]; nothing of the sort exists in Paradise, [for the only residue of their food is sweat that seeps from their skins; once it is released they become lean and have no need of anuses]. Thus the entire question is without any conceivable reality.”

This man transmitted only a single hadith from his teacher Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, with the chain of transmission mentioned earlier: from Shuʿbah, from Manṣūr, from Ribʿī ibn Ḥirāsh, from Abū Masʿūd al-Badarī, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “If you feel no shame, then do as you wish.” (2)

Al-Qaʿnabī also narrated this hadith from Shuʿbah, and no one else narrated from him. Some said this happened because, when al-Qaʿnabī travelled to Shuʿbah, he entered upon him while Shuʿbah was urinating over a drain. He asked for a narration, so Shuʿbah related this hadith as an admonition and pledged [not] to narrate anything else to him. Others said Shuʿbah once passed by al-Qaʿnabī before the latter had embarked on the study of hadith, at a time when he was still drinking wine. He asked Shuʿbah for a narration, but Shuʿbah refused. Al-Qaʿnabī then drew a knife and said, “If you do not narrate to me, I will kill you.” Shuʿbah therefore narrated the hadith; al-Qaʿnabī repented, turned back to Allah, and attached himself to Mālik. Later he missed the chance to hear anything further from Shuʿbah, so he retained from him only this solitary hadith.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dāmghānī (3) [the judge], Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī (ibn Muḥammad) (4) ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn