Al-Khaṭīb said: ʿThe Azhari related to us, saying: “I was informed that, while still a youth, al-Dāraquṭnī attended the session of Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār. He was copying a booklet he had brought with him while Ismāʿīl dictated. A man objected, ‘Your audition is invalid if you are writing.’ Al-Dāraquṭnī replied, ‘My comprehension of the dictation is different from yours. How much of what the shaykh has just dictated have you memorised?’ The man answered, ‘Nothing.’ Al-Dāraquṭnī then said, ‘He has dictated 18 hadiths: the first is from so-and-so, from so-and-so, with the wording such-and-such; the second is from so-and-so, from so-and-so, with the wording such-and-such,’ and he continued in that fashion until he had covered all the hadiths. The people were astonished at him—or words to that effect (1).”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Dharr al-Harawī said: “I heard that al-Dāraquṭnī read the book al-Nasab (Genealogies) to Muslim al-ʿAlawī. After the reading, the litterateur al-Muʿayṭī said to him, ‘Abū al-Ḥasan, you are bolder than the one who dares castrate a lion! You read a book like this—packed with poetry and literary passages—yet no solecism can be detected in your recitation!’ He was amazed at him.” Al-Khaṭīb quoted this from the Azhari. Muslim ibn ʿUbayd Allah added, “He used to transmit the book al-Nasab from al-Khaḍir ibn Dāwūd, from al-Zubayr (2).”

Rajāʾ ibn Muḥammad al-Muʿaddil said: “I asked al-Dāraquṭnī, ‘Have you ever met anyone like yourself?’ He replied, ‘Allah says, ‘So do not ascribe purity to yourselves’ (al-Najm 53:32).’ I persisted, so he said, ‘I have not seen anyone who has gathered what I have gathered.’” This was related by Abū Dharr and al-Ṣūrī from Rajāʾ al-Miṣrī. Abū Dharr said: “I asked Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥākim, ‘Have you seen anyone like al-Dāraquṭnī?’ He answered, ‘He himself never saw anyone like himself—so how could I?!’ (3)”

Whenever the ḥadith master ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Azdī cited al-Dāraquṭnī, he would say: