A man who had heard Abū Ḥafṣ al-Muʿallim wrote to me:

“Ibn al-Mubārak informed us, Abū Muḥammad al-Khaṭīb informed us, Ibn Ḥabābah informed us, al-Baghawī narrated to us, Muḥammad ibn Ghailān narrated to us, ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us from Maʿmar, who said:

‘Ibn Shihāb enjoyed among his circle the same standing that al-Ḥakam enjoyed among his.’”

Al-Awzāʿī said, “When I performed the pilgrimage I met ʿAbdah ibn Abī Lubābah. He asked me, ‘Have you met al-Ḥakam?’ I replied, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Then meet him, for between its two lava tracts there is no one more learned than he.’”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “He is the most reliable transmitter from Ibrāhīm.”

Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said, “There was no one in Kūfah like al-Ḥakam and Ḥammād ibn Abī Sulaymān.”

ʿAbbās al-Dūrī said, “Al-Ḥakam was a man of worship and virtue.”

Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIjlī said, “Al-Ḥakam was trustworthy, precise, a jurist, one of the senior pupils of Ibrāhīm, and a man devoted to the sunnah and its practice.”

Sulaymān al-Shadhakūnī said, “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd narrated to us—I heard Shuʿbah say, ‘Al-Ḥakam used to give ʿAlī precedence over Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.’”

I (the author) say: al-Shadhakūnī is not dependable, and I do not believe such a statement can be attributed to al-Ḥakam.

Abū Isrāʾīl al-Mulāʾī narrated from Mujāhid ibn Rūmī, who said, “I would not recognise al-Ḥakam’s merit except when the scholars gathered in the mosque of Minā. I would look at them and see that they were (1) all dependent on him.”

And through my chain to al-Baghawī: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq narrated to us, Ibn Numayr narrated to us, Ibn Idrīs narrated to us from his father, who said, “I saw al-Ḥakam and Ḥammād in the gathering of Muḥārib, while he was on…"