Al-Anmaṭī said: Abū Isḥāq would perform wudu on the riverbank, yet he would remain doubtful about having washed his face, so he would wash it repeatedly. A man asked him, “Shaykh, what is this?” He replied, “Had I been certain that the three obligatory washings were valid, I would not have exceeded them.” (1)

Al-Samʿānī relates: One day Abū Isḥāq entered a mosque to eat lunch. He left a dinar behind, then remembered, returned, and found it. He reflected and said, “Perhaps it belonged to someone else,” and so he left it there. (2)

It is said that Ẓāhir al-Naysābūrī compiled a fascicle for Abū Isḥāq. In it he once said, “Abū ʿAlī ibn Shādhān narrated to us,” at another time, “al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Bazzāz narrated to us,” and at yet another, “al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Bakr al-Fārisī narrated to us.” Abū Isḥāq asked, “Who is that?” He was told, “He is Ibn Shādhān.” Abū Isḥāq responded, “I have no desire for this fascicle; tadlīs (concealing one’s source) is the brother of lying.”

Judge Abū Bakr al-Anṣārī said: I once met Abū Isḥāq on the road with a legal question. He picked up a baker’s pen, wrote the answer, and then wiped the pen on his own garment. (3)

Al-Samʿānī said: I heard several people say that when Abū Isḥāq arrived in Naysabūr as an emissary, the townspeople came out to receive him. Imām al-Ḥaramayn carried his saddle-cloth, walked in front of him, and declared, “I take pride in this.” (4)

Most of the lecturers in Iraq and the Jibāl region were his students and followers—and that, for them, was distinction enough.