Hamzah said, “I heard a number of people—among them the ḥadith master Ibn al-Muẓaffar—speaking of the excellence of Abū Bakr’s recitation. They said, ‘He was accorded precedence in every gathering; whenever he attended, no one else would read.’ (1)

Al-Ismāʿīlī states in his Muʿjam: “In my childhood I wrote down the dictated traditions in my own hand in the year 283 AH, and at that time I was six years old.”

This shows that Abū Bakr’s family were eager to cultivate his learning from a very early age.

His son Abū Saʿd, as well as the scholars of Jurjān, studied jurisprudence under him.

Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Farrāʾ related to us; Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Dīn ʿAbd Allah related to us; Masʿūd ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid related to us; Ṣāʿid ibn Sayyār related to us; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī related to us; Hamzah ibn Yūsuf related to us; Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī related to us, and said:

“Know—may Allah have mercy on you—that the doctrine of the people of ḥadith is to affirm Allah, His angels, His books and His messengers, and to accept whatever the Book of Allah states and whatever has been authentically transmitted from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. There is no turning aside from that.

“They also hold that Allah is invoked by His Most Beautiful Names and described by the attributes with which He described Himself and with which His Prophet described Him; that He created Adam with His own hands, and that His two hands are outstretched—without asking how; that He rose over the Throne—without ascribing any modality,” and he went on to mention the rest of the creed.

Qāḍī Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī said, “I entered Jurjān intending to meet Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī while he was still alive, but he died before I could see him.”

Hamzah said, “I heard Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī say: ‘When the news of Muḥammad’s death reached me…’”