Abū ʿUbaydah al-Ājurrī said, “I heard Abū Dāwūd remark: ‘Whenever Sufyān and Shuʿbah disagree over anything, Sufyān always prevails. He opposed him in more than 50 hadiths, and in every one the sound position is that of Sufyān.’

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn likewise said, “No one ever differed with Sufyān on any matter except that the decisive word was Sufyān’s.”

Yahyā ibn Naṣr ibn Ḥājib related from Waraqāʾ: “Al-Thawrī never saw anyone the equal of himself.”

Ibn ʿUyaynah observed, “The luminaries of hadith are three: Ibn ʿAbbās in his era, al-Shaʿbī in his era, and al-Thawrī in his era.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī stated, “I do not know of Sufyān ever committing a single slip of the pen, except in the name of Abū ʿUbaydah’s wife; he would say Ḥufaynah, whereas the correct form ends with a j.”

Al-Marrūdhī reported from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who said, “Do you know who the Imam is? The Imam is Sufyān al-Thawrī; no one surpasses him in my heart.”

Al-Khuraybī said, “I have never seen anyone more learned in jurisprudence than Sufyān.”

Ibn ʿUyaynah also said, “I sat with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Qāsim, Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym, and Zayd ibn Aslam, yet among them I found no one comparable to Sufyān.”

Abū Qaṭan reported that Shuʿbah told him, “Sufyān attained mastery over the people through his piety and his knowledge.”

Qabīṣah said, “I never sat with Sufyān in any gathering without remembering death; I have never seen anyone mention death more frequently than he did.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khubayq narrated from Yūsuf ibn Asbaṭ: “After the night prayer, Sufyān said to me, ‘Hand me the water vessel (1) so I can perform ablution.’ I passed it to him, and he took it with his right hand and rested his left…"