Abū Ḥātim said, “He was a hadith master, meticulous. Among the scholars of transmission I have met no one who could memorize a report and deliver it verbatim, without altering a single word, except Qabīṣah and Abū Nuʿaym in the narrations of Sufyān al-Thawrī. Abū Nuʿaym, in particular, preserved what he had from al-Thawrī with remarkable accuracy.
He possesses three thousand five hundred hadiths from al-Thawrī, and he also retains five hundred hadiths from Misʿar. Moreover, he was not someone who could be coached. (1)
Aḥmad ibn Manṣūr al-Ramādī related: “I travelled with Aḥmad and Yaḥyā to ‘Abd al-Razzāq, acting as their attendant. When we returned to Kūfah, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said, ‘I wish to put Abū Nuʿaym to the test.’
Aḥmad replied, ‘Do not do it; the man is reliable.’
Yaḥyā insisted, ‘I must.’ He took a sheet of paper and wrote on it thirty hadiths, inserting at the head of every set of ten a report that was not from Abū Nuʿaym’s narrations.
We then came to Abū Nuʿaym. He emerged and sat on a clay bench, seated Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal on his right and Yaḥyā on his left, while I sat further down the bench. Yaḥyā produced the folio and read ten hadiths to him. When he read the eleventh, Abū Nuʿaym said, ‘That is not one of my hadiths; cross it out.’
He read the second set of ten; Abū Nuʿaym remained silent until the second report, whereupon he said, ‘This is not from my narration; strike it out.’
He read the third set of ten, and on the third report Abū Nuʿaym’s expression changed, his eyes shifted. Turning to Yaḥyā he said, ‘As for this man’—grasping Aḥmad’s arm—‘he is too God-fearing to do such a thing; and as for this one’—meaning me—‘he is too insignificant to attempt it. Rather, this is your handiwork, you perpetrator!’ Then he stretched out his foot and kicked Yaḥyā, sending him off the