Those who narrated from him were: the ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAbdarī; Muḥammad ibn Tarkhān al-Turkī; the ascetic Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb al-Hamadhānī; Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī, author of “al-Targhīb wa al-Tarhīb”; the judge Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Julābī; al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan al-Maqdisī; Ṣiddīq ibn ʿUthmān al-Tibrīzī; his own teacher Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb—who had, in fact, passed away long before him—; Abū Isḥāq ibn Nabhān al-Ghanawī; Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn Naṣr ibn Khamīs al-Mawṣilī; Abū al-Qāsim Ismāʿīl ibn al-Samarqandī; Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn al-Baṭṭī; the ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn Nāṣir; and others besides them.

He was one of the last representatives of the people of ḥadith—in knowledge, practice, creed, and humble submission. May Allah show him mercy.

Muḥammad ibn Tarkhān said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī say, “I used to be carried on someone’s shoulder so that I could attend the public recitals, and that was in the year 425 AH. The first scholar I heard from was the jurist Aṣbagh ibn Rāshid, and I could understand what was being read to him. He himself had studied under Abū Muḥammad ibn Abī Zayd. My father was originally from Córdoba, from a quarter known as al-Ruṣāfa; he later moved to the island of Mayūrqa (Majorca), and it was there that I was born.”

Yaḥyā ibn al-Bannāʾ said: Out of sheer diligence al-Ḥumaydī would spend the hot nights copying texts, sitting in a wooden basin (1) filled with water to keep himself cool.

Al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Khusraw said: Abū Bakr ibn Maymūn once came and knocked at al-Ḥumaydī’s door. Thinking he had been granted permission, he entered and found him with his thigh uncovered. Al-Ḥumaydī burst into tears and said, “By Allah, you have just looked at a part of my body that no one has seen since I came of age.”

Abū Naṣr ibn Mākūlā (2) said: “I have never seen the like of our companion Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī.”