“When ʿAbd Allah travels out of Marw for but a single night,
its very light and loveliness depart along with him.
Whenever the learned men are spoken of in any land,
they are that land’s stars, while you are its crescent moon.” (1)

Hāshim ibn Marthad reported: ʿUthmān ibn Ṭālūt narrated to us, “I heard ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī say, ‘Knowledge reached its summit with two men: first with Ibn al-Mubārak, and then with Ibn Maʿīn.’ ” (2)

Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Jārūd said: ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī remarked, “ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak possessed broader knowledge than ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī and Yaḥyā ibn Ādam.” (3)

Abū Salamah al-Tabūdhakī related: I heard Sallām ibn Abī Muṭīʿ say, “Ibn al-Mubārak left no equal to himself in the East.” (4)

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Junayd recounted: I heard Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and when they mentioned ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak someone remarked, “He was not a ḥāfiẓ.” Yaḥyā replied, “ʿAbd Allah—may Allah have mercy on him—was intelligent, careful, trustworthy, a scholar whose hadith were sound. The books from which he transmitted numbered twenty thousand, or twenty-one thousand.” (5)

Abū Maʿshar Ḥamdawayh ibn al-Khaṭṭāb al-Bukhārī said: I heard Naṣr ibn al-Mughīrah al-Bukhārī say, I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Shammās say, “The most knowledgeable in jurisprudence I have ever seen was Ibn al-Mubārak; the most scrupulous was al-Fuḍayl; and the finest memorizer was Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarāḥ.” (6)