ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus said, “Who can escape making mistakes? More than once I saw Sharik err and misread words to the point that I felt embarrassed.”

Yaʿqūb al-Sadūsī narrates: “Sulaymān ibn Manṣūr told us; Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād ibn Abī Ḥanīfa told us that he said, ‘I said to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, “Do you not notice how often people praise Sharik, despite the abundance of his mistakes and slips?”’ He replied, ‘Be quiet, woe to you! All of Kufa sides with him: he champions the Arabs, so they are with him, and he shows sympathy to these foolish mawālī (non-Arab clients), so they are with him as well.’”

ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus also said, “I never saw anyone among our companions more austere than Sharik. At times I would see him take his own sheep and go out to the people. Before he became a judge I once appraised his two garments at no more than ten dirhams. I might enter his house and find nothing in it but a ewe he milked, a maṭhara (ablution vessel), a barīyya (reed mat) (1), and a water-jar. Sometimes he would soak bread in the maṭhara, toss his books over to me, and say, ‘Write down the hadith of your grandfather and whatever else you wish.’”

Yaʿqūb al-Sadūsī adds: “Al-Haytham ibn Khālid also told me that Sharik once narrated the hadith, ‘I was placed in one pan (of the scales)….’ A man said to Sharik, ‘Where, then, was ʿAlī—may Allah honor his face?’ He replied, ‘With the people, in the other pan.’”

Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIjlī said, “I heard some Kufans relate that Sharik said: ‘Sālim al-Aftas came to us, so I went to him carrying a parchment on which were one hundred hadiths. I asked him about them and he narrated them to me while Sufyān was listening. When he finished, Sufyān said to me, “Show me your parchment.” I handed it over, and he tore it up. I went back home, lay down on my back, and memorized ninety-seven of the hadiths; Sufyān memorized them all.’”

(1) A woven reed mat.