and his rendition is more precise than mine, for he was the one who used to lead his grandfather by the hand.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Thalj transmitted from Shabābah: “I said to Yūnus, ‘Dictate to me the reports your father related.’ He replied, ‘Write them from Isrāʾīl, for my father dictated them to him.’ ”

Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jarjarāʾi, on the authority of Khalaf ibn Tamīm, said: “I heard Abū al-Aḥwas—if Allah wills—narrate from Abū Isʿhāq that he remarked, ‘Isrāʾīl did not leave us a single niche or chest without cramming it (1) with books.’ ”

Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥunaynī said: “I heard Abū Nuʿaym being asked, ‘Who is the more reliable, Isrāʾīl or Abū ʿAwānah?’ He answered, ‘Isrāʾīl.’ ”

Al-Nasāʾī said: “There is no problem with him.”

I say: The overwhelming majority praised Isrāʾīl, and both al-Bukhārī and Muslim relied on his narrations. He was a ḥāfidh, a man of books and learning.

Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Barāʾ related from ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī that he said, “Isrāʾīl is weak.”

I say: ʿAlī merely followed his teacher Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, and Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm came in their wake and likewise declared him weak.

He even went so far as to reject the narrations of Isrāʾīl found in the two Ṣaḥīhs, refusing to accept them. Such an opinion carries no weight; rather, Isrāʾīl is trustworthy.

Granted, in terms of meticulous verification he is not on a par with Sufyān and Shuʿbah, though he may well approach them in what he relates from his grandfather, for he accompanied him morning and evening for ten years. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī would transmit from him and regarded him as sound. Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd’s decision not to narrate from him does not amount to much, nor does the fact that he reports from Mujālid (2).