al-Ṣaḥābah, one volume; and other works whose titles do not occur to me at present (1).

The ḥadith master ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismāʿīl said in his History: “Al-Bayhaqī conducted himself like the scholars of old—content with little, dignified in his asceticism and piety.”

(2) He also said: “He is Abū Bakr—the jurist, ḥadith master, and scholar of uṣūl—devout and scrupulous, unrivalled in his age for memorization and without peer among his contemporaries in precision and control. He was one of the foremost disciples of al-Ḥākim, yet he surpassed al-Ḥākim in several branches of knowledge. From his youth he wrote down hadiths and committed them to memory; he studied law until he excelled, mastered the science of uṣūl, and traveled to Iraq, the mountain regions, and the Hijaz. Thereafter he authored works whose combined parts approach one thousand fascicles—an accomplishment unprecedented before him. He united the disciplines of hadith and jurisprudence, clarified the hidden defects of reports, and demonstrated how to reconcile seemingly conflicting narrations. The leading scholars asked him to move from Bayhaq to Nishapur so that his books could be heard there; he arrived in the year 441 AH, where they convened a session for the audition of the book al-Maʿrifah (3), attended by the eminent imams (4).”

The Chief Judge Abū ʿAlī Ismāʿīl ibn al-Bayhaqī said: “My father narrated to us: When I began composing this book—meaning al-Maʿrifah fī al-Sunan wa al-Āthār—and had finished revising several of its fascicles, I heard the jurist Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad (5)—one of my most righteous companions, the most devoted to Qurʾanic recitation, and the truest in speech—say: ‘I saw al-Shāfiʿī …’”