five hundred hadiths, or even more. (1)

He went on: “I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh say, ‘I reflected on the transmitters of Anas, and within a single sitting three hundred of them came to mind.’

He also said, ‘I never visited anyone without his gaining from me more than I gained from him.’ (2)

He further related from Sulaim ibn Mujāhid, who heard Abū al-Azhar say: ‘In Samarkand there were four hundred students of hadith. They gathered for seven days, intent on catching Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl in error. They blended Syrian isnads with Iraqi ones and Yemeni isnads with those of the Two Sanctuaries, yet they could not pin on him a single slip—neither in the chain of transmission nor in the text.’ (3)

Al-Firabrī said: “I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh confess, ‘I never regarded myself as small before anyone except ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, though I would occasionally narrate to him reports that were unfamiliar to him.’” (4)

Ahyad ibn Abī Jaʿfar, the governor of Bukhārā, recounted: “Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl once observed, ‘More than once I heard a hadith in Basra but did not write it down until I was in Syria, and I heard a hadith in Syria but only recorded it in Egypt.’ I asked him, ‘O Abū ʿAbd Allāh, did you record it in its entirety?’ He fell silent.” (5)