Harmalah said: I heard al-Shāfiʿī declare, “I wish that every branch of knowledge I teach could reach the people, that I would be rewarded for it, and that they would not praise me.” ⦗1⦘

Muḥammad ibn Muslim ibn Warrah recounted: I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, “What is your opinion of al-Shāfiʿī’s works that circulate among the Iraqis? Do you prefer those, or the ones composed in Egypt?” He replied, “Rely on the books he wrote in Egypt. He produced those earlier works while in Iraq and had not yet perfected them; afterward he returned to Egypt and refined those.”

I then said to Aḥmad, “Which scholars’ writings do you advise me to consult—Mālik’s, al-Thawrī’s, or al-Awzāʿī’s?” He answered me with words of such respect for them that I refrain from repeating them, and added, “Stay with al-Shāfiʿī, for he is the most often correct among them and the closest in his adherence to the transmitted reports.” ⦗2⦘

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Nājiya the ḥāfiẓ said: I heard Ibn Warrah relate, “When I returned from Egypt I visited Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who asked me, ‘Have you copied al-Shāfiʿī’s books?’ I said, ‘No.’ He responded, ‘You have been negligent. We did not distinguish the general from the specific, nor the abrogating report from the abrogated, until we sat with al-Shāfiʿī.’ That statement compelled me to go back to Egypt and transcribe them.” ⦗3⦘

This narrative from Ibn Nājiya is transmitted solely by ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Rāzī al-Ṣūfī.