and Abū Nuʿaym informed us: Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad related to us, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad related to us, ʿAbbās al-Narsī told me, Wuhaib related to us, al-Jaʿd Abū ʿUthmān related to us, saying, “I heard al-Ḥasan declare, ‘Ayyūb is the foremost of the young men of Basra.’”
By this same chain back to Abū Nuʿaym: Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣawwāf related to us, Bishr related to us, al-Ḥumaydī said, “Ibn ʿUyaynah met eighty-six of the Successors and used to say, ‘I have never seen anyone like Ayyūb.’”
Ḥabīb ibn al-Ḥasan related to us, Yusr ibn Anas al-Baghdādī related to us, Abū Yūnus al-Madīnī related to us, Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad told me, “I heard Mālik say, ‘We would visit Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, and whenever we mentioned a hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he would weep until we felt pity for him.’”
Abū Ḥāmid ibn Jabalah related to us, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq related to us, Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ related to us, Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir, from Salām, said, “Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī would stand in prayer the entire night, concealing it; but when dawn approached he would raise his voice as though he had risen only that moment.”
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan related to us, al-Firyābī related to us, Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm related to us, Ibn Mahdī related to us, Ḥammād ibn Zayd said, “I heard Ayyūb. He was asked, ‘Why do you not examine this—meaning speculative opinion?’ He replied, ‘They said to the donkey, “Will you not chew the cud?” He answered, “I dislike chewing falsehood.”’”
Sulaymān related to us, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz related to us, ʿĀrim related to us, Ḥammād said, “I have never seen a man who smiled more in people’s faces than Ayyūb.”
Sulaymān related to us, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Jadhūʿī related to us, Hudbah related to us, Salām ibn Miskīn said, “I heard Ayyūb say, ‘There is no evil worse than an immoral reciter.’”