Ḥātim; Abū Zurʿah; Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah; Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī; Baqī ibn Makhlad; Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib; al-Muṭayyan; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī; and a host of others.
He was a foremost authority in both learning and practice.
Abū Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī said, “Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal held Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr in extraordinary esteem and would exclaim, ‘What a peerless youth he is!’”
Ibrāhīm ibn Masʿūd al-Hamadhānī relates: “I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say, ‘Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr is the pearl of Iraq.’”
The ḥāfiẓ ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Junayd said, “Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn used to adopt whatever judgment Ibn Numayr passed on the scholars of his hometown.”
Ibn al-Junayd also remarked, “I have never seen anyone in Kūfa like Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr. He combined knowledge, insight, fidelity to the Sunnah, and asceticism. In the bitter cold of winter he wore a lubbādah (a coarse felt cloak), and in summer he merely wrapped himself in a simple cloth. He lived in poverty.”
Aḥmad ibn Sinān al-Qaṭṭān said, “Among the younger men of Kūfa I counted no one superior to Ibn Numayr. He would lead us in the obligatory prayers while his own father prayed behind him. He came to us during the days of Yazīd ibn Hārūn—that is, when we were in Wāsiṭ.”
Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIjlī stated, “A Kufan, reliable, and numbered among the people of hadith.”
Abū Ḥātim declared, “Reliable; his narrations are to be used as proof.”
Abū Dāwūd said, “He is more accurate than his father.”