and I heard him say, “I am one of Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil’s pupils, while he is the teacher.” (1)

I (the author) add: al-Bukhari narrated a number of hadiths in his Sahih from ʿAbd Allah ibn Munir, on the authority of Yazid ibn Harun and others.

He was a man of asceticism and devotion; al-Bukhari even said, “I have never seen anyone like him.”

I further note: he and Imam Ahmad passed away in the same year.

Muhammad said: I heard Abu Bakr al-Madini in al-Shash, during the time of ʿAbd Allah ibn Abi ʿArabah, relate: “We were in Nishapur with Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, and Abu ʿAbd Allah (al-Bukhari) was in the gathering. Ishaq reached a report that stopped short of a Companion—ʿAta al-Kaykharani. (2)

Ishaq asked, ‘Abu ʿAbd Allah, what is Kaykharan?’ He answered, ‘It is a village in Yemen. Muʿawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan had dispatched this man—Abu Bakr used to call him by a name I have now forgotten—to Yemen. On his way he passed by Kaykharan, and ʿAta heard two hadiths from him.’

Ishaq said to him, ‘Abu ʿAbd Allah, it is as though you had actually been with those people.’ (3)

Ibn ʿAdi relates: Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qumasi told me, ‘I heard Muhammad ibn Khumayruwayh say: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil declare, “I have memorised one hundred thousand sound hadiths, and two hundred thousand that are not sound.”’ (4)