Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi

Abd al-Rahman b. Mahdi b. Hassan, the great memoriser, celebrated imam, and pearl, Abu Sa'id of Basra, client of the Azd — also said of Banu al-Munira; born in 135 AH, he heard Sufyan al-Thawri, Hisham al-Dastuwa'i, Mu'awiya b. Salih, Ibn Abi Khalda, Shu'ba, Sulayman al-Taymi, and others, while Ibn al-Mubarak, Ahmad, Ishaq, Ibn al-Madini, and others besides narrated from him. ²

Ahmad b. Hanbal said "he is more learned than Yahya al-Qattan and more reliable than Waki', being closer in time to the books; when the two differed over the deletion of some fifty of al-Thawri's hadiths we checked and found the majority of correctness lay with Abd al-Rahman"; Isma'il the judge reports Ali saying "the most knowing of people in hadith is Abd al-Rahman b. Mahdi"; al-Qawariri said "Ibn Mahdi dictated twenty thousand hadiths to me from memory"; Ali b. al-Madini said "Abd al-Rahman's knowledge of hadith is like magic"; he was a jurist, sure in fatwa, of great standing, and his nightly portion was half the Qur'an. ³

He died in Jumada al-Akhira of 198 AH; his sons inherited from him. ⁴