Mustadrak al-Hakim — Hadith 4690M

It is narrated from Ahmad bin Yahya al-Hulwani that when Abu al-Azhar returned from San'a and mentioned this hadith before the people of Baghdad, Yahya bin Ma'in rejected it. Then, when the day of his gathering came, at the end of the gathering he asked: "Where is that liar from Naysabur who narrates this hadith on the authority of Abd al-Razzaq?" Abu al-Azhar stood up and said: "Here I am." Yahya bin Ma'in laughed at his words and at the way he stood up in the gathering; then he called him close and said: "How did Abd al-Razzaq narrate this hadith to you alone, when he did not tell it to anyone other than you?" He replied: "O Abu Zakariyya! Know that when I reached San'a, Abd al-Razzaq was in a distant village of his. I set out towards him while I was ill. When I reached him, he asked me about the affairs of Khurasan, and I told him about them. I wrote hadith from him and then returned with him to San'a. When I was bidding him farewell, he said to me: Your right over me has become due, so I will narrate to you a hadith that no one besides you has heard from me. Then, by Allah, he narrated this hadith to me in these very words." So Yahya bin Ma'in affirmed his truthfulness and apologised to him.