Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿUqda said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Qutaybah narrated to me, “I heard Ibn Numayr—when he mentioned Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ—say, ‘He stands alone among people in the knowledge of the Ḥijāz and the Maghrib; he is a man of penetrating understanding (1)….’ Ibn Numayr then went on to extol him at length and spoke of him without the least reservation.

Aḥmad ibn Salamah al-Nīsābūrī, reporting from Ibn Wārah, said: “Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in Baghdad, Ibn Numayr in Kūfah, and al-Nufaylī in Ḥarrān—these are the pillars of the religion (2).”

Aḥmad al-ʿIjlī said, “Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ is an Egyptian, reliable, and an adherent to the Sunnah (3).”

Abū Ḥātim remarked, “Reliable; I wrote from him in Egypt, Damascus, and Antioch (4).”

Abū Zurʿah of Damascus said, “I held scholarly discussions with Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ when he arrived in Damascus in the year 217 AH.”

Abū ʿUbayd al-Ājurrī said: I heard Abū Dāwūd state, “Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ took notes from Salāmah ibn Rūḥ but never narrated from him; he transcribed fifty thousand hadith from Ibn Zubālah yet did not relate any of them. Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ began teaching hadith before he reached forty, and ʿAbbās al-ʿAnbarī transmitted—through an intermediary—from him, saying, ‘Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ would correct every grammatical slip in a hadith’ (5).”

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sahl al-Ghazzāl said, “Aḥmad ibn….”