I say: He penned an inestimable corpus on the language of the Arabs. Endowed with extraordinary memory, quick intelligence, and an elegant turn of phrase, he rose to undisputed prominence.

Thaʿlab relates, on the authority of Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar the grammarian (1): “When al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl arrived, he gathered the men of letters, and I was among them. Al-Ḥasan signed fifty ruqʿahs (petition slips). Conversation turned to those renowned for their powers of memorization, and we mentioned al-Zuhri and Qatādah.

Al-Aṣmaʿī said, ‘I shall repeat, in the very order in which the emir endorsed them, every one of the slips.’ The ruqʿahs were therefore brought in, and he proceeded: ‘The holder of the first ruqʿah is so-and-so, his name is such-and-such, and he has been granted such-and-such; the second ruqʿah is such-and-such; the third…,’ until he had reviewed a little over forty slips.

Naṣr ibn ʿAlī al-Jahḍamī exclaimed, ‘Man, spare yourself from the evil eye!’ (2) A similar report is transmitted through another chain. He added, ‘That is enough—do not let the evil eye kill you.’

Then he said, ‘Boy, send him off with fifty thousand.’

ʿAmr ibn Marzūq said, ‘I saw al-Aṣmaʿī and Sībawayh debating.’ Yūnus remarked, ‘The truth is with Sībawayh, but this man defeats him with his tongue’ (3).

It is also reported from al-Aṣmaʿī that Hārūn al-Rashīd once rewarded him with one hundred thousand (4).