and Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqi, and a great many others, the last of them being Muḥammad ibn Shaddād al-Mismaʿī.

He used to say, “I stayed with Shuʿbah for twenty years.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmmār said, “In his compilations Ibn Mahdī recorded two thousand hadiths from Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, and he narrated them while Yaḥyā was still alive.”

It is reliably established that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “With my own eyes I have never seen anyone like Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān.”

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said to me, ‘You will never see with your eyes anyone comparable to Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān.’”

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said, “I have never seen anyone more knowledgeable about narrators than Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd.”

Bundar said, “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd—the leading authority of his age—narrated to us.”

Abū al-Walīd al-Ṭayālisī said, “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd was a client (mawlā) of Banū Tamīm—so they claim—and he was shown reverence even while still young.”

Ibn Maʿīn said, “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd told me: ‘No one holds over me any bond or claim of patronage.’”

Al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm said, “I heard Ibn Mahdī say:
‘When al-Thawrī arrived in Baṣra he said, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān! Bring me a man with whom I can review (hadith).”
So I brought him Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, and they revised together. When he came out he said, “I told you to bring me a man; you have brought me a devil!”—meaning he was astonished by Yaḥyā’s prodigious memory.’”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Khāqān said, “I heard ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī say: He was …”