May a transmitter take payment for teaching hadith?

In al-Kifaya, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi gathers two opposing chapters on a traditionist taking compensation for narrating: "the dislike of taking payment for teaching hadith, and those who said one should not hear from a man who does so", and "some reports of those who took compensation for teaching hadith". ^{1 2}

• Al-Khatib relates that when al-Hasan sat to teach hadith he was given a gift and returned it, saying that whoever sits in such a session has no share with God. ¹
• A man who used to hear from Hammad ibn Salama sailed the China sea and on his return gave him a gift; Hammad let him choose: either he would accept the gift and never teach him again, or teach him and decline the gift; the man chose the teaching and Hammad returned the gift. ¹
• From Abu al-Aliya: son of Adam, teach freely as you were taught freely — in another report, this is written in the scriptures. ^{1 3}
• Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, asked about a traditionist who teaches for payment, said: one does not write from him; Ahmad ibn Hanbal, asked whether one writes from someone who sells hadith, said: no, and no honour; Abu Hatim al-Razi said: one does not write from him. ³
• Sulayman ibn Harb said: nothing heavenly remains but hadith and judgeship, and both are corrupted — judges bribe to be appointed, and traditionists take dirhams for the hadith of the Messenger of God ﷺ. ³

Al-Khatib says: "They forbade it only to protect the narrator from being suspected", because some who took payment for narration were found adding to their reports and claiming what they had not heard for the sake of what they were given. ³ He links this to what is reported of Shu'ba: write nothing from the poor, for they will lie for you; and: write from Ziyad ibn Mikhraq, for he is a man of means who does not lie. ^{3 2} He notes that Ali ibn Asim answered Shu'ba: how many rich men lie! — and that Shu'ba himself was poor, living in his in-law's household. ²

Al-Khatib says that, despite what he has cited, several early scholars allowed taking payment for narration. ²

• He relates that when Ikrima came to Tawus, Tawus mounted him on a thoroughbred camel worth sixty dinars, saying: shall I not buy this slave's learning for sixty dinars? ²
• Mujahid, when students came to him, would tell one of them: go and do such-and-such for me, then come and I will teach you. ²
• Abu Nu'aym al-Fadl ibn Dukayn took sound dirhams from his students, and when they had broken coins he charged an exchange fee on them. ⁴
• Al-Nasa'i relates that Ya'qub ibn Ibrahim would narrate the hadith forbidding urinating in still water only for a dinar. ⁴
• Al-Nasa'i also censured Ali ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Makki — not for lying, but because he refused to read to a group who had paid him while a poor stranger among them had not, until the stranger brought his bowl. ⁴