Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī told me; Jaʿfar al-Hamadhānī told us; al-Salafī told us: “I asked Shuʿjāʿ al-Dhuhlī about Abū Isḥāq, and he replied,
‘He is the leader of the Shāfiʿīs, the foremost among them in his time in Baghdad. He was reliable, God-fearing, upright, and so well-versed in the points of juristic disagreement that no one could match him.’ (1)

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Hamadhānī said: “The Caliph al-Muqtadī biʾllāh appointed Abū Isḥāq as his envoy to the military camp, so he set out in the closing days of 475 AH. The townspeople—men, women, and children—came out to meet him, wiping their hands over the hem of his cloak (2) and collecting the dust of his sandals to seek healing by it. The bakers appeared and scattered loaves of bread; though he forbade them, they would not desist. The fruit-sellers and confectioners followed, tossing their produce over the thresholds; they even fashioned tiny sandal-shaped pastries and flung them so that they fell upon people’s heads. The Shaykh was astonished and said to us, ‘You saw all that was thrown—how much of it reached you?’ They replied, ‘Master, and what share did you receive?’ He answered, ‘I covered myself inside the palanquin.’ (3)

Shīrawayh al-Daylamī states in his History of Hamadhān: ‘Abū Isḥāq, the imam of his age, came to us as an emissary to Sultan Malikshāh. I heard hadith from him. He was trustworthy, a jurist, genuinely detached from worldly things—unique in his era.’

The preacher of Mosul, Abū al-Faḍl, said: “My father related to me: I travelled from Mosul in the year 459 AH to visit Abū Isḥāq. When I was admitted into his presence he welcomed me warmly and asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I replied, ‘From Mosul.’ (4) He said, ‘Welcome—you are one of my own townsmen.’ I said, ‘Our master!’”