he had just returned from Iraq and began telling him about the mihnah—the doctrinal inquisition the people were enduring—and about what Ibn Ḥanbal and others had done.

When Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl left, Muḥammad ibn Salām said to those present, “Do you think even a virgin could be more bashful than this young man?”

Abū Jaʿfar said: I heard Yaḥyā ibn Jaʿfar say, “If I could add to Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl’s lifespan from my own, I would do so; my death would be the death of one man, but his death would be the loss of knowledge.” ⦗1⦘

He also reported that Yaḥyā ibn Jaʿfar—al-Bīkandī—once said to Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, “Had it not been for you, I would have found no pleasure in living in Bukhara.”

I heard Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf relate: “We were with Abū Rajāʾ—namely Qutaybah—when he was asked about the validity of a divorce pronounced by a drunken man. He replied, ‘Here before you are Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Ibn al-Madīnī, and Ibn Rāhwayh; Allah has brought them to you,’ and he pointed to Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl.”

Muḥammad’s legal position was that if a man’s reason is overwhelmed to the point that he cannot remember what he says or does while intoxicated, then none of his statements or actions carries any legal weight. ⦗2⦘

Muḥammad further said: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd ibn Jaʿfar recount that when Aḥmad ibn Ḥarb al-Naysābūrī died, Muḥammad and Isḥāq mounted their rides to escort his funeral procession. I would hear the scholars of Naysābūr observing and saying, “Muḥammad is more learned in jurisprudence than Isḥāq.”