al-Aratt came up to us, standing over us with a gold ring on his hand, and said, “Do all of these people recite exactly as you do?”

ʿAbd Allah replied, “If you wish, I can ask some of them to recite.”

He said, “Yes.”

So ʿAbd Allah said, “Recite, O ʿAlqamah.”

Someone objected, “Are you telling him to recite when he is not the best of us at recitation?”

ʿAbd Allah answered, “If you like, I will tell you what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said about his people and about your people.”

ʿAlqamah relates, “I then recited fifty verses from Sūrah Maryam.”

ʿAbd Allah remarked, “He has recited only as I recite.”

Then ʿAbd Allah said, “Has not the time come for this ring to be thrown away?”

So he took it off, hurled it aside, and said, “By Allah, you will never see it on me again.” (1)

Shaybān transmits—from al-Aʿmash, from Mālik ibn al-Ḥārith, from Abū al-Aḥwaṣ—who said:

I came to Abū Mūsā while ʿAbd Allah and Abū Masʿūd al-Anṣārī (2) were with him, looking into a codex of the Quran.

We talked for a while; then ʿAbd Allah got up and left.

Abū Masʿūd said, “By Allah, I do not know that the Prophet ﷺ left anyone more knowledgeable about the Book of Allah than this man who has just gone out.” (3)

Al-Aʿmash reports—from Abū al-Ḍuḥā, from Masrūq:

ʿAbd Allah said, “By Him besides Whom there is no deity, I have recited from the very mouth of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ more than seventy surahs, and if I knew of anyone more learned in the Book of Allah than I am, to whom the camels could carry me, I would surely go to him.” (4)