ʿAbbās al-Dūrī related: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abān told me, “I heard al-Thawrī say, ‘Whoever places anyone ahead of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar has thereby belittled twelve thousand of the Companions of Allah’s Messenger—those with whom the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, departed this world while pleased with them.’

ʿAbbās (al-Dūrī) also said: Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Razzaq narrated to us; I heard al-Thawrī say, ‘Wipe over them so long as they remain on the feet, even if they are tattered.’ He added, ‘The leather socks of the Emigrants and the Helpers were likewise riddled with holes and splits.’

The senior scholars from whom al-Thawrī transmitted—and who, in turn, narrated from him—are: Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, Ibn Abī Dhīb, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī, al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān, Salamah al-Abrash, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, Abān ibn Taghlib, Ḥamzah al-Zayyāt, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, al-Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Ḥayy, Khārijah ibn Muṣʿab, Khuṣayf ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Sulaymān al-Aʿmash, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ Sallām ibn Sulaym, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj, Sharīk the judge, al-Awzāʿī, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, Ibn Jurayj, Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ.

These names were set down by al-Ḥākim.

It is also reported through the chain: Sulaymān ibn Bilāl, from Ibn ʿAjlān, from al-Thawrī.

It has been transmitted from al-Thawrī that he said, ‘I like the seeker of knowledge to have his basic needs met, for calamities reach him more quickly, and people’s tongues are swifter against him.’ (1)

Zāʾidah said, ‘Sufyān was the most knowledgeable jurist among the people.’

Ibn al-Mubārak remarked, ‘I do not know anyone on the face of the earth more learned than Sufyān.’

And Ibn ʿUyaynah said, ‘Sufyān never saw the like of himself.’