He went on: I also heard Abū Bakr al-Kalwadhānī say, “I have never seen anyone comparable to Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. He would take a scholar’s book, give it a single look, and in that one sitting memorize almost all the aṭrāf (key portions) of its ḥadīths.” ⦗1⦘

Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firrabrī said: I heard Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Warrāq remark, in the additional material appended to “The Characteristics of Abū ʿAbd Allāh”—and I (the author) note that these supplements are not included in the transmission of Ibn Khalaf al-Shīrāzī—he said:

“I heard Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī state, ‘I did not sit to teach ḥadīth until I could distinguish the sound reports from the unsound, until I had surveyed most of the books of legal opinion, and until I had entered Basra five times or so. I left no authentic ḥadīth there without recording it—except what had not yet become evident to me.’”

Ghunjar says in his “History”: Abū ʿAmr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Muqriʾ related to us; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf al-Bīkandī narrated to us; I heard ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿĀṣim al-Bīkandī say, “Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl came to us, so we gathered around him.

“One of us said, ‘I heard Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh say, “It is as though I can see seventy thousand ḥadīths from my book.”’

“Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl replied, ‘And do you find that remarkable? Perhaps, in this very age, there is someone who surveys two hundred thousand ḥadīths from his own book.’”

By this he was alluding to himself. ⦗2⦘

Section: The Praise of the Imams for Him

Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I heard some of my companions say: