He also said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh say, “There was a shaykh who would pass by us in the study circle of al-Dākhilī. I would inform him of the sound hadiths that were presented to me and of the scholars’ judgments concerning them. One day he said to me, ‘O Abū ʿAbd Allāh, you are our chief when it comes to abujad (the science of alphabetical numerals).’

He went on: It reached me that Abū ʿAbd Allāh had taken a memory-enhancing remedy called baladhur. So I once asked him in private, ‘Is there a medicine a person can drink that will help his memory?’

He replied, ‘I do not know of any.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘I know nothing more beneficial for memory than a man’s avid desire and his constant review.’ (1)

He added, ‘The reason I say this is that while I was residing in Nīshāpūr, books would arrive to me from Bukhārā sent by female relatives of mine, and they used to convey their greetings in those books. I wrote a reply to Bukhārā and intended to return their greetings, but when I wrote my letter their names slipped my mind, so I failed to convey my greetings to them—and how little it is that escapes me of knowledge!’

He also said: I heard him state, ‘My transcription of hadith was not like the transcription of these others. Whenever I wrote from a man, I would ask him his given name, his kunyah, his lineage, and how he had carried the hadith—provided the man was intelligent. If he was not, I would ask him to bring out his original manuscript and his personal copy. As for the others, they are indifferent to what they write and how they write it.’

He further said: I heard al-ʿAbbās al-Dūrī declare, ‘I have never seen anyone pursue hadith so expertly as Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl; he would leave neither root nor branch without plucking it up.’ Then he told us, ‘Do not leave out a single word of his—write it all down.’

He added: One of the rulers wrote to Abū ʿAbd Allāh concerning a personal need and invoked abundant prayers for him. Abū ʿAbd Allāh wrote back: ‘Peace be upon you. I praise before you Allah—there is no deity but He. To proceed: Your letter has reached me and I have understood it. And to his own house one must go…’