ʿUthmān added, “Afterwards Isḥāq openly professed suspension (waqf) when I asked Ibn Maʿīn about him.”

Al-Baghawī said, “He is reliable, trustworthy, but of limited judgment.”

Ṣāliḥ Jazara remarked, “Truthful; he would say, ‘The Qur’an is the speech of Allah,’ and then stop.”

Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj related, “I heard him say, ‘These youngsters say: “The speech of Allah is uncreated.” Why not simply say, “the speech of Allah,” and keep quiet?’ ”—pointing as he spoke toward the house of Imām Aḥmad.

Isḥāq ibn Dāwūd said, “Isḥāq ibn Abī Isrāʾīl embraced the Jahmite doctrine after ninety years.”

Abū Ḥātim stated, “He suspended judgment regarding the Qur’an, so we refrained from taking his hadith. People abandoned him to the extent that I would pass by his mosque and find him alone, no one approaching him, after they had once flocked to him in crowds.”

Shāhīn ibn al-Sumaydʿ ⦗1⦘ said, “I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say, ‘Isḥāq ibn Abī Isrāʾīl is a waqfī of ill fortune, yet he is intelligent and a man of hadith.’ ”

Zakariyyā al-Sājī observed, “He was truthful; they left him because of his stance of suspension. By ‘they left him’ I mean they refrained from taking reports from him—not that his hadith belongs to the category that must be discarded.”

Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ismāʿīl al-Fārisī said, “I asked ʿAbdūs ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Nīsābūrī about Isḥāq ibn Abī Isrāʾīl, and he replied, ‘He was an outstanding ḥāfiẓ; none equalled him in memorization and piety.’

“I asked, ‘Was he suspected of the stance of suspension?’

“He said, ‘Yes.’

“I said, ‘His scrupulousness and austerity led him to that position; it was not because he subscribed to Jahmism—certainly not.’ ”