regarding a ḥadīth: “O Abū Saʿīd, four men have contradicted you.” I asked, “Who are they?” He replied, “Zāʾidah, Sharīk, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, and Isrāʾīl.” Yaḥyā retorted, “Had there been four thousand like those, Sufyān would still be more reliable than all of them.”
ʿAbd al-Razzāq said, “I heard al-Awzāʿī remark, ‘If it were said, “Select for this ummah a man who will uphold within it the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet,” I would choose Sufyān al-Thawrī.’”
Abū Hammām reported: al-Mubārak ibn Saʿīd told us, saying, “I saw ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Najūd come to Sufyān al-Thawrī to seek a legal opinion. He would say, ‘Sufyān, you used to come to us when you were young, and now we come to you when you are old.’”
ʿAbbās narrated from Ibn Maʿīn, who said, “No one transmits Sufyān’s ḥadīth like these men: Ibn al-Mubārak, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, Wakīʿ, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.” He then added, “Al-Ashjaʿī is trustworthy and dependable. After those men, the foremost narrators from Sufyān are: Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, ʿUbaydullāh ibn Mūsā, Abū Aḥmad al-Zubayrī, Abū Ḥudhayfah, Qabīṣah, Muʿāwiyah ibn Hishām, and al-Firyābī.”
I asked, “What about Abū Dāwūd al-Ḥafarī?” He replied, “Abū Dāwūd is a righteous man.”
Al-Faḍl ibn Muḥammad al-Shaʿrānī said, “I heard Yaḥyā ibn Aktham say, ‘There used to be leading figures among the people: Sufyān al-Thawrī was the leading authority in ḥadīth, Abū Ḥanīfah the leading authority in analogical reasoning (qiyās), and al-Kisāʾī the leading authority among the Qurʾān reciters. Today, however, no discipline retains its foremost authority.’”
I say: After that generation there were also leaders. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī was the foremost in ḥadīth, Abū ʿUbaydah Maʿmar in language, al-Shāfiʿī in jurisprudence, Yaḥyā al-Zubayrī in Qurʾān recitation, and Maʿrūf al-Karkhī in asceticism. Then came Ibn al-Madīnī, the leading authority in ḥadīth and its hidden defects; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, the leading authority in jurisprudence and the Sunnah; Abū ʿUmar al-Dūrī in Qurʾān recitation; Ibn al-Aʿrābī in language; and al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī in asceticism.