Is it true that Ma'mar ibn Rashid became confused in his old age?

The questioner : Yes, my Shaykh, regarding Ma'mar ibn Rashid, did he become confused in his old age?

The Shaykh : I have not learned that, but it is known that they distinguish between what he narrated in Basra, as I think or remember, and what he narrated elsewhere. That is to say, they attribute some weakness to what he narrated in Basra, I think, and perhaps you remember.

The questioner: In Iraq.

The Shaykh : In Iraq, Basra is part of it, but that they reached the point of not using his narrations as evidence at all, that is what... in weakening the hadiths narrated by Ma'mar, because there is in the air a feeling that in what Ma'mar narrated there is something of strangeness, denunciation, or anomaly, so in this situation they resort to weakening his narration by saying that it is from what he narrated in Basra, as for whether he became confused in his old age, I do not know if anyone means to have accused him of that.

The questioner : No one has accused him of that, but I came across a statement by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, the meaning of which was that he was refuting a hadith of Ma'mar, saying: that he became confused in his old age.

The Shaykh : He says that he became confused in his old age.

The questioner : Yes, its meaning is that he became confused in his old age.

The Shaykh : If that is its meaning, it should be interpreted in light of what was mentioned in his biography, and nothing else.

The questioner : Yes, I mean, can the ijtihad of Shaykh al-Islam not be considered?

The Shaykh : Yes, I mean, there is an exaggeration in depicting Ma'mar's error. Perhaps you mean by that the hadith: or another hadith, ?

The questioner : Yes, it is in another place, but in this one he only refers to Ma'mar's errors and that he became confused in his old age, but I mean, in a place in the fatwas I saw him use this term explicitly.