And it is related from him that he once yearned for tharid—bread crumbled into broth—made with bean-water. He said, “Yet I never actually managed to eat it, being preoccupied with teaching and with taking my appointed shift.” (1)

Al-Samʿānī said: Our colleagues in Baghdad reported that when Shaykh Abū Ishāq had gone a while without eating anything, he would climb to al-Naṣriyya where he had a friend. The friend would crumble a loaf for him and soak it in the water used for boiling beans; sometimes, however, Abū Ishāq would arrive after the friend had finished, at which point he would say, “That, then, would be a losing return.” (2) [Q 79:12]

Abū Bakr al-Shāshī said, “Abū Ishāq is Allah’s proof against the leading scholars of the age.” (3)

Al-Muwaffaq the Ḥanafī said, “Abū Ishāq is the Commander of the Faithful among the jurists.” (4)

Judge Ibn Hāniʾ (5) said, “Two imams were never able to perform the pilgrimage: Abū Ishāq and the chief judge Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Damaghānī. As for Abū Ishāq, he was poor; had he wished to go, people would have carried him on their shoulders. As for the other, had he wanted, he could have travelled reclining on silk and brocade.” (6)

Al-Samʿānī said: I heard Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-Shahrazūrī in Mosul say, “Whenever someone made a mistake in front of our shaykh Abū Ishāq, he would remark, ‘What a silence you have missed!’ (7)”

He added, “He used to be given to obsessive misgivings—meaning, about (the purity of) water. And I heard ʿAbd al-Wahhāb…"