Al-Musayyab ibn Wādih said: Ibn ʿUyaynah was asked about zuhd (asceticism). He replied, “Asceticism is to abstain from whatever Allah has forbidden. As for what Allah has made lawful, He has granted it to you in full permission. The prophets married, rode mounts, wore clothing, and ate food; yet when Allah forbade them something they desisted, and by that they were true ascetics.”

Ibn ʿUyaynah also said, “Jesus, son of Mary, felt no desire for women because he was not created from a seminal drop.”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: Sufyān narrated to us, “To the best of our knowledge, no one resembled Jesus, son of Mary, more closely than Abū Dharr.”

ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb narrated: “I heard Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, regarding Allah’s words, ‘…with the martyrs and the righteous’ (Q 4:69), say, ‘The righteous are the scholars of hadith.’”

Aḥmad ibn Zayd ibn Hārūn narrated: Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir told us, “I heard Ibn ʿUyaynah say, ‘I have more right to weep than al-Ḥuṭayʾah: he weeps over poetry, while I weep over hadith.’”

Shaykh al-Islām added after this, “I think he uttered these words when he was confined to his house and prevented from teaching hadith, for he became mentally confused a year before his death.”

I (the author) say: We do not concede that—where is your chain of transmission for it?

Aḥmad ibn Salāmah al-Ḥaddād informed us in his book; Masʿūd al-Jammāl and a group of others narrated to us, stating: Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād informed us; Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ (1) informed us; ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿĀṣim al-Thaqafī narrated to us, “I heard Sufyān ibn…"