“What do you say about the two Shaykhs?”
He replied, “Two low-born fellows.”
Ibn al-Barrāj asked, “Whom do you mean?”
He answered, “You and I.”(1)

Ibn ʿAqīl relates in his Funūn: “The judge Abū Yūsuf al-Qazwīnī came to us from Egypt. He prided himself on his Muʿtazilism, dealt freely in disparaging the scholars, and was conspicuously bold. Whenever he approached the residence of Niẓām al-Mulk he would announce, ‘Ask permission for Abū Yūsuf the Muʿtazilite.’

“He had an unruly tongue—at times guided by knowledge, at times by insolence. He mastered nothing save Qurʾanic exegesis, to which he was so devoted that he produced a commentary running to five hundred volumes, filled with astonishing material. I saw one fascicle devoted to a single verse—‘They followed what the devils recited’ (Q 2:102)—in which he discussed sorcery, the kings over whom magic was practiced, its effects, and its varieties.(2)

“Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik said, ‘He owned more books than anyone else. It was said that he bought them in Egypt for loaves of bread during the famine, while ʿAbd al-Muḥsin ibn Muḥammad told me he acquired them for exorbitant sums.

“‘He purchased volumes from the library of al-Sīrāfī, which contained more than forty thousand books. Each week Abū Yūsuf would spend one hundred dinars, saying, “I have already sold my saddle and everything in my house.”

“‘Leading figures furnished him with stipends, and it was reported that he arrived in Baghdad with ten loads of books, most of them penned in fine calligraphy.

“‘He himself said, “I have possessed sixty different Qurʾan commentaries.”

“‘He presented to Niẓām al-Mulk Ibrāhīm al-Harbī’s Gharīb al-Ḥadīth in ten volumes, and the Poetry of al-Kumayt in thirteen volumes.’”