I said, “You are their standard-bearer.”
Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn states in Refinement of the Names: “Abū Ḥayyān is one of our author-scholars. Among his curiosities is that he wrote in one of his epistles, ‘There is no ribā (usury) in saffron,’ a view seconded by Abū Ḥāmid al-Marwadhī (1).”
Ibn al-Najjār said: “He produced fine compositions, such as al-Baṣāʾir and others.”
He added: “He was poor yet patient, devout, and of sound creed (2). He heard (hadith) from Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī, and the judge Aḥmad ibn Bishr al-ʿĀmirī.
“Those who narrated from him include ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf al-Fāmī, Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr ibn Jīkān (3), ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad al-Dāwūdī, Naṣr ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Fārisī, and Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Fāris al-Shīrāzī; he also met al-Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād and others of similar standing.
“I note that Abū Saʿd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mammajah al-Iṣbahānī likewise heard from him in the year 400 AH, and that is the last recorded encounter with him.”
Al-Silafī said: “Naṣr ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz preserved some remarkable anecdotes that he alone transmitted from Abū Ḥayyān (4).”
Abū Naṣr al-Sijzī, the ḥāfiẓ, quoting what Jaʿfar al-Ḥakkāk related from him, said: “I heard Abū Saʿd al-Malīnī say:
‘I read the epistle—meaning the one attributed to Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, together with Abū ʿUbaydah, addressed to ʿAlī, may Allah honor his face—to Abū Ḥayyān, and he said, “This …”’