Allah al-Taymi, one of the Ten Companions promised Paradise.

Abū Mūsā said: Ismāʿīl related, “I heard ʿĀʾishah (1) when I was four years old, and he had heard from Abū al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlyaka in 461 AH.

Abū Mūsā also said: I do not know anyone who ever reproached him for word or deed, and no one contended with him without Allah granting him victory. He was above worldly ambitions: he never entered upon the sultans or those connected to them. Though of limited means, he vacated one of his own houses for the scholars. Had a man offered him the whole world, it would not have raised that man’s standing in his eyes. He dictated 3,500 sessions, and he would dictate them extemporaneously (2).

The ḥadith master Yaḥyā ibn Manda said: “Abū al-Qāsim’s creed was sound, his conduct beautiful, his speech sparing; in his day there was no one like him.” (3)

ʿAbd al-Jalīl Kūṭāh said: “I heard the leading scholars of Baghdad say, ‘After Imām Aḥmad, no one better—or with a stronger memory—ever travelled to Baghdad than Ismāʿīl.’” (4)

I say: This is the statement of someone who does not know.

Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī, when listing those who stood at the threshold of the fifth century, said: “I do not know anyone in the lands of Islam qualified to interpret hadith except Ismāʿīl the ḥadith master.” (5)