Khuzaymah; Ibn Ṣāʿid; Abū Ḥāmid al-Ḥaḍramī; Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr al-Shīʿī; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Mukram; and multitudes besides them.

He was counted among the foremost luminaries.

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad said: I asked my father about him, and he replied, “There is nothing objectionable in him,” and he approved of him.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I asked my father about Naṣr ibn ʿAlī and ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Ṣayrafī: “Which of the two is dearer to you?” He answered, “Naṣr is dearer to me, more reliable, and more retentive; Naṣr is trustworthy.”(1)

Al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Khirāsh likewise said, “Trustworthy.”(2)

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Farhayānī remarked, “In my estimation, Naṣr is among the nobles of mankind.”(3)

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zubaybī said: I heard Naṣr ibn ʿAlī recount, “I entered upon al-Mutawakkil and found him praising gentleness at length, so I said, ‘Commander of the Faithful, al-Aṣmaʿī recited to me:

I have never(4) seen the like of gentleness in its softness—
It draws the maiden from the privacy of her chamber.
Whoever enlists gentleness in what he undertakes—
Can lure the serpent from the depths of its hole.(5)’

Thereupon he called, ‘Boy! The inkwell and the paper,’ and he had the verses written down.”