al-Ṭūsī, who said: “I heard Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Sulamī say, ‘I heard al-Buwayṭī say, “I heard al-Shāfiʿī declare: ‘The foundational hadiths for legal rulings number a little over five hundred; all of them are with Mālik except for thirty, and all of them are with Ibn ʿUyaynah except for six.’”’” Its transmitters are trustworthy.

Judge Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Wāsiṭī—among what I heard from him—and al-Khaṭīb transmitted to us: ʿAbd Allah ibn Mūsā al-Sulamī told us, “I heard ʿAmmār ibn ʿAlī al-Lūrī say, ‘I heard Aḥmad ibn al-Naḍr al-Hilālī say, “I heard my father relate:

‘I was attending the gathering of Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah when he looked at a young boy. It seemed that the people in the mosque belittled him because of his age, so Sufyān recited, “Such were you before; then Allah bestowed His favor upon you” (Q 4:94).

‘He then said, “O Naḍr, if only you had seen me when I was ten years old: my height was five spans, my face shone like a dinar, and I was like a blazing flame. My garments were small, my sleeves short, my hem just right, and my sandals like the ears of a mouse. I would travel to the scholars of the various cities—al-Zuhrī, ʿAmr ibn Dīnār and the like—and sit among them like a nail. My inkwell was the size of a walnut, my pen-case like a banana, and my pen like an almond. Whenever I arrived they would say, ‘Make room for the little shaykh!’”’ He laughed as he said this.’”

The soundness of this report is open to question, for he only heard from the aforementioned scholars when he was fifteen years old or older.

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah once entered upon Maʿn ibn Zāʾidah—the governor of Yemen—at a time when Sufyān had not yet been tainted by any involvement with the authorities, and he began to admonish him.”

ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb al-Ṭāʾī said: “I heard my father say, ‘I would love to have a maid with the same charming softness that Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah displays whenever he narrates hadith.’”

Rabah ibn Khālid al-Kūfī said: “I asked Ibn ʿUyaynah, saying, ‘O Abū Muḥammad, indeed—’”