Al-Khaṭīb (1) said: “Accounts have reached us regarding Abū Ḥāmid—he was trustworthy. I attended his lesson in the Mosque of Ibn al-Mubārak and heard it said that seven hundred jurists would gather for his class. People used to remark, ‘Had al-Shāfiʿī seen him, he would have rejoiced in him.’

Al-Khaṭīb (2) also said: “Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī related to me: I asked the judge Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣaymarī, ‘Who is the most perceptive jurist you have ever met?’ He answered, ‘Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāyīnī.’

Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī writes in one of his epistles: “I heard Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid say to Ṭāhir al-ʿAbbādānī, ‘Do not record much of what you hear from us in the sessions of disputation, for the talk there is aimed at ensnaring the opponent, confounding him, warding him off, and overpowering him. We are not speaking purely for the sake of Allah; were that our intention, our steps toward silence would be swifter than our reach for words. Though in much of this we expose ourselves to Allah’s anger, we still hope in the vastness of Allah’s mercy.’” (3)

I say: Abū Ḥayyān is not reliable.

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ said: “Some scholars applied the ḥadith, ‘Indeed, Allah will raise up for this ummah at the turn of every hundred years someone who will renew its religion,’ to Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid. Thus, al-Shāfiʿī was at the turn of the second century, Ibn Surayj at the turn of the third, and Abū Ḥāmid at the turn of the fourth.” (4)