ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad reported from his father: “I examined Ismāʿīl’s notebook of narrations from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd and found some hadiths that were sound and others that were inconsistent.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah said, “He is regarded as reliable in what he relates from his own teachers among the people of Syria, but in what he narrates from others there is weakness.”

ʿUthmān al-Dārimī transmitted from Duḥaym, who remarked, “With respect to the Syrians, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh is at the highest level, yet he mixed things up when narrating from the Medinans.”

Al-Fallās stated, “When he reports from the people of his own region, his hadiths are sound; concerning the Medinans he is of no value, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ibn Mahdī] would not transmit from him.”

Ibn al-Madīnī said, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān struck out his hadith as well as the hadith of al-Mubārak ibn Faḍālah.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī related: “I asked my father about Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh; he graded him weak in what he narrated from the Syrians and others. I also heard him say, ‘No one knows more than he about the hadith of the Syrians—if only he had confined himself to the hadith of the Syrians. But he muddled what he narrated from the Iraqis. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān transmitted from him and then crossed out his hadith.’ ”

Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah said, “In the view of Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and our colleagues, Ismāʿīl is trustworthy only in what he transmits from the Syrians; his narrations from the Iraqis and the people of Medina contain many inconsistencies, though he was well-versed in the learning of his own region.”

Al-Bukhārī observed, “When he narrates from the people of his own land, his reports are sound; when he narrates from others, they require scrutiny.”