, al-Qāḍī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Marwazī, Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān, Abū Muslim al-Kajjī, and many others.
Al-ʿIjlī said: “A Basran, reliable. He kept no written collection.” I asked him, “Do you have a book?” He answered, “My book is in my chest.” (1)
Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I heard my father say, “ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī copied from him the book of Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ. He is a ḥāfiẓ, astute, and dearer to me than Umayyah ibn Bisṭām.” (2)
He also said: I heard Abū Zurʿah remark, “I asked Muḥammad ibn al-Minhāl to read to me the Tafsīr of Abū Rajāʾ by Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ. From memory he dictated half of it to me. Some days later I returned, and he dictated to me from exactly where he had stopped, saying, ‘Take it.’ I was astonished, for he had completely memorized the ḥadith of Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ.” (3)
Al-Qāsim ibn Ṣafwān al-Bardhaʿī reported from ʿUthmān ibn Khurraẓādh: “The four most retentive people I have ever met are: Muḥammad ibn al-Minhāl al-Ḍarīr, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArʿarah, Abū Zurʿah, and Abū Ḥātim.” (4)
Ibn ʿAdī said: I heard Abū Yaʿlā speak of Muḥammad ibn Minhāl al-Ḍarīr, extolling him in lofty terms and stating that he was the most accomplished memorizer in Basra during his time and the most accurate of them in transmitting from Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ. (5)