Al-Muʾtaman al-Sājī said, “Since al-Dāraqutnī, Baghdad has produced no one with a better memory than Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb.” (1)

Abū ʿAlī al-Bardānī remarked, “It may well be that al-Khaṭīb never saw anyone comparable to himself.” (2)

Both statements reached me through the following chain: al-Musallam ibn Muḥammad—from al-Qāsim ibn ʿAsākir—who said: My father narrated to us; my brother Hibat Allāh narrated to us; and Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī transmitted them on their authority.

The jurist Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī said, “Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb can be compared to al-Dāraqutnī and his peers in the knowledge and memorization of hadith.” (3)

Abū al-Fityān, the ḥāfiẓ, stated, “Al-Khaṭīb was the imam of this discipline; I have never seen his like.” (4)

Abū al-Qāsim al-Nasīb related: “I heard al-Khaṭīb say: ‘Abū Bakr al-Barqānī composed with me a letter to the ḥāfiẓ Abū Nuʿaym in which he wrote: “Our brother Abū Bakr—may Allah support and protect him—has traveled to you to draw upon the knowledge you possess. Praise be to Allah, he already enjoys an excellent precedent and a firm footing in this field; he has journeyed widely in its pursuit and attained from it what many of his peers have not. When you meet him, what he possesses of this will become evident to you along with…”’”