so I asked, “Is all of this your knowledge?”
He answered, “When it is given its due, even this is a great deal.” (1)

Thaʿlab relates that someone once asked al-Aṣmaʿī, “How have you preserved it while others forgot?” He replied, “I applied myself, whereas they abandoned study.” (2)

ʿUmar ibn Shabba said, “I heard al-Aṣmaʿī declare, ‘I have committed to memory sixteen thousand urjūzah poems (odes in the rajaz metre).’” (3)

Muḥammad ibn al-Aʿrābī said, “I was present when al-Aṣmaʿī recited roughly two hundred verses, and not a single verse among them was familiar to us.” (4)

Al-Rabīʿ reported that he heard al-Shāfiʿī say, “No one has ever expressed the Arabic tongue more eloquently than al-Aṣmaʿī.” (5)

According to Ibn Maʿīn, “Al-Aṣmaʿī was one of the most learned people in his discipline.” (6)

Abū Dāwūd said, “He is trustworthy.” (7)