Ibn Khuzaymah said, “The most knowledgeable person I ever met in the Mālikī school was Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam. A disagreement flared up between him and al-Buwayṭī when Imām al-Shāfiʿī died. Abū Jaʿfar al-Sukkarī related to me:

‘Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and al-Buwayṭī both laid claim to al-Shāfiʿī’s majlis (teaching seat). Al-Buwayṭī said, “I am more entitled to it than you,” and the other said the same. Then al-Ḥumaydī—who was in Egypt at the time—arrived and declared, “Al-Shāfiʿī said: ‘No one has more right to my seat than Yūsuf; none of my companions is more learned than he.’”

Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam retorted, “You are lying.”
Al-Ḥumaydī answered, “Rather, it is you, your father, and your mother who are lying.”
Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam became enraged, so al-Buwayṭī took al-Shāfiʿī’s place, while Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam sat in the third ṭāq (1).’

Judge Zakariyya ibn Aḥmad al-Balkhī narrated to us: Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Tirmidhī told us, saying that al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān said:

‘When al-Shāfiʿī fell ill in Egypt, al-Buwayṭī, Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, and al-Muzanī disputed over the ḥalaqa (study circle). Word of this reached al-Shāfiʿī, and he ruled, “The circle belongs to al-Buwayṭī.” Because of that, Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam withdrew from al-Shāfiʿī and his students, even though it had been the largest circle in the mosque.

Al-Buwayṭī used to fast and would usually complete a full khatma (recital of the entire Qur’an) over the course of a day and a night, while also extending many acts of kindness (2) to the people.

Through the same chain to al-Rabīʿ, he said:
Informers brought charges against al-Buwayṭī. Among those who denounced him was Abū Bakr al-Aṣamm—who is not Ibn Kaysān al-Aṣamm—as well as followers of Ibn Abī Dāwūd and the son of al-Shāfiʿī. They were among those who informed against him until Ibn Abī Dāwūd wrote to the governor of Egypt concerning him,