And Abū Muʿāwiyah said, “I have never seen anyone who preserved the hadith of al-Aʿmash better than al-Thawrī. He would come to me and review al-Aʿmash’s narrations, and I never found anyone more knowledgeable about them than he.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmmār reported: “I heard Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd say, ‘Sufyān knows al-Aʿmash’s hadith better than al-Aʿmash himself.’”

Ibn ʿArʿarah said, “I heard Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd declare, ‘Sufyān is more reliable than Shuʿbah and more versed in the narrators.’”

Muḥammad ibn Zunbūr stated, “I heard al-Fuḍayl say, ‘By Allah, Sufyān was more learned than Abū Ḥanīfah.’”

Ibn Rāhawayh said, “I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī mention Sufyān, Shuʿbah, Mālik, and Ibn al-Mubārak, then remark, ‘The most knowledgeable of them is Sufyān.’”

Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah narrated: “I heard Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān say, ‘I have never seen anyone with a sharper memory than Sufyān—after him comes Shuʿbah.’”

Bishr al-Ḥāfī said, “To us, al-Thawrī was the imam of the people.” He also said, “In his own era, Sufyān was like Abū Bakr and ʿUmar in theirs.”

Ibn Maʿīn observed, “No one was more knowledgeable than al-Thawrī regarding the hadith of al-Aʿmash, Manṣūr, and Abū Isḥāq.”

Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī likewise remarked, “I have never seen anyone comparable to al-Thawrī.”

Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh said, “Whenever I see a man keeping company with Sufyān, he rises in my estimation.”

Waraqāʾ and a number of others declared, “Sufyān al-Thawrī never met anyone his equal.”

Shuʿayb ibn Ḥarb concluded, “I am convinced that on the Day of Resurrection Sufyān will be brought forth as a proof from Allah against His creation, and it will be said to them, ‘You did not meet your Prophet, but you did see Sufyān.’”