Ibn Bukayr said: I heard him relate, “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad used to come to us, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Khaṣṣāṣ (1)—my mother’s uncle—would read to him. He would seat me on his lap until someone asked, ‘Does that hurt you?’ and he would reply, ‘I love him.’ (2)

Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Furāt said: “He attended many auditions, but toward the end of his life he became confused; he lost his sight and slipped into dotage until he no longer recognized what was being read to him.” (3)

Al-Khaṭīb stated: I heard the jurist Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad al-Qaṣrī say: Ibn al-Labbān, the specialist in inheritance law, told me, “Do not go to al-Qaṭīʿī; he has grown weak and unsound, and I have forbidden my son to receive transmissions from him.” (4)

Ibn Abī al-Fawāris said: “He was not as they have portrayed him. In certain parts of the Musnad he possessed master copies that merit further scrutiny. He said he rewrote them after a flood destroyed the originals. He was a discreet man who upheld the Sunnah.” (5)

Al-Sulamī said: I asked al-Dāraquṭnī about him, and he replied, “Trustworthy, ascetic, of the earlier generation; I have heard that his supplications are answered.”

Al-Barqānī said: “He was righteous, and his father had ties with the ruling authorities. Because of that, the Musnad was read for the ruler’s son under the supervision of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, and al-Qaṭīʿī was present. Later a portion of his books was destroyed by water, so he recopied it from a volume in which, they claimed, he had no documented audition, and they therefore disparaged him. What has been firmly established for me is that he was truthful, though somewhat simple-minded. I have already regarded him as lenient in…"