Al-Nasāʾī said, “He is reliable, trustworthy.”

Abū Ḥātim Ibn Ḥibbān remarked, “He ranked among the precise ḥuffāẓ and was known for his scrupulous piety.”

Sulaymān ibn Qudāmah related to us—Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī related to us—the Salafī related to us—Jaʿfar al-Sarrāj related to us—Abū Muḥammad al-Khallāl related to us—Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā narrated to us—ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Muhtadī-biʾllāh narrated to us—Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Rishdīn narrated to us; he said: I heard the ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī say:

“I saw no one in Iraq the equal of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in Baghdad, nor of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr in Kūfah, each of them a consummate scholar. I encountered no two men like them anywhere in Iraq.”

Al-Bukhārī said, “He died in Shaʿbān—or in Ramaḍān—of the year 234 AH.”

Ibn Ḥibbān stated, “In Shaʿbān.”

Abūʾl-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Tāj al-Umānāʾ informed us—during a public recitation before him in the year 692 AH—on the authority of Abū Rūḥ ʿAbd al-Muʿizz ibn Muḥammad al-Harawī, who reported that Tamīm ibn Abī Saʿīd informed them: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us; Abū ʿAmr ibn Ḥamdān narrated to us; Abū Yaʿlā Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Bishr narrated to us; ʿUbayd Allāh narrated to us, from Abū Bakr ibn Sālim, from Sālim, from Ibn ʿUmar, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “I was shown in a dream that I was drawing water with a bucket from a well. Then Abū Bakr came and drew one or two bucketfuls, doing so weakly—may Allah forgive him. Then ʿUmar came, and the bucket turned into an enormous leather bucket. I have never seen a person of mankind who could draw water as powerfully as he did, until the people had quenched their thirst and watered their animals.”

This is an authentic hadith, singular through this route, and Abū Bakr is scarcely known except