He further said: “As for Abū al-Ḥusayn, he was one of the righteous who devoted themselves to worship. He studied the Qur’an with Abū Bakr ibn Mujāhid, and then went on to list his other teachers. He wrote the books al-ʿIlal, al-Shuyūkh, and al-Abwāb. While still in the prime of life he refrained from transmitting ḥadith, but once he reached eighty our companions attached themselves to him night and day until they had heard the entire work al-ʿIlal—which runs to a little over eighty fascicles—together with al-Shuyūkh and the rest of his compilations. I kept his company for a little more than twenty years, night and day, and I do not know that the recording angel ever set down a single sin against him.

More than once I heard Abū ʿAlī the ḥāfiẓ say, ‘ʿAffān has not come,’ ‘I said to ʿAffān,’ and ‘ʿAffān said to me’—meaning Abū al-Ḥusayn, whom he nicknamed so because of his prodigious memorization, precision, and insight. By my life, he truly was an ʿAffān, for his understanding exceeded even his memory.

Abū ʿAlī the ḥāfiẓ also narrated to us during one of his dictation sessions, saying: ‘Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Yaʿqūb—who is the soundest transmitter from whom I have narrated to you today—told me: al-Aṣbagh ibn Khālid al-Qarqasānī informed us that ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā al-Qarqasānī related to them: Muʾammal narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd narrated to us; ʿAmr ibn Dīnār informed us, from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:

“I have never prized any session of mine more than the hour I once spent beside the apartment of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, waiting for the dawn prayer, while a group nearby were disputing about the Qur’an until their voices rose. The Prophet ﷺ came out angry, holding the edge of his cloak over his face, and said:

‘O people, the nations before you were only destroyed by things like this. The Book was sent down so that its parts confirm one another; it was not revealed for some parts to belie others. Whatever clear instructions you obtain from it, act upon them; and whatever is unclear to you, refer its knowledge back to Allah.’⦗1⦘