The Sunnah was both his outer and inner garment—doctrinally and in practice. If a man entered (1) his gathering-place (2) with the left foot first, he would oblige him to step back out and re-enter with the right. He never touched the ajzaʾ (single-volume hadith booklets) unless he was in a state of ablution, and he did nothing at all without facing the qibla, out of reverence for it.
I (3) remarked: No report promising a reward for this has come down… until he said:
I heard, from someone I trust, that ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismāʿīl al-Fārisī said about the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-ʿAlāʾ, when the latter entered Nishapur, “No one like you has ever come into Nishapur.”
I also heard the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan (4) say—mentioning a man among his companions who had travelled—“If he returns without meeting the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-ʿAlāʾ, his journey will have been wasted.”
I say: Abū al-ʿAlāʾ the ḥāfiẓ was greater in the Qurʾān readings than in hadith, even though he was one of the foremost hadith authorities. He made several journeys to Baghdad, Isfahan, and Nishapur.
Abū Saʿya Ṣabīḥ al-Aswad (5) narrated to us, saying: Abū al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Muqayyar (6) narrated to us,