Then I saw ʿAmr ibn Zurārah and Muḥammad ibn Rāfiʿ with Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, asking him about the ʿilal (hidden defects) of hadith. When they rose to leave they said to those present, “Do not let yourselves be deprived (1) of Abū ʿAbdallāh, for he surpasses us in jurisprudence, knowledge, and insight (2).”

He also said: I heard Ḥāshid ibn ʿAbdallāh relate, “We were with Isḥāq and ʿAmr ibn Zurārah was there as well; he was having al-Bukhārī dictate while the hadith students were writing from him, and Isḥāq kept saying, ‘He has a sharper eye than I do.’ At that time Muḥammad was still a young man (3).”

He further said: Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf narrated to me, “We were with Abū ʿAbdallāh in the presence of Muḥammad ibn Bashshār. Muḥammad ibn Bashshār asked him about a hadith and he answered him, whereupon he exclaimed, ‘In our age this man is the most learned of God’s creatures,’ and he pointed to Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl.”

He said: I heard Sulaim ibn Mujāhid remark, “If Wakīʿ, Ibn ʿUyaynah and Ibn al-Mubārak were alive, they would still have need of Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl.”

He said: I heard Abū ʿAbdallāh say: Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways told me, “Look through my books; whatever I possess is yours, and I shall remain grateful to you as long as I live.”

And he said: Abū ʿAmr al-Karmānī told me, “I heard ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Sayrafī say, ‘Abū ʿAbdallāh is my friend; there is no one like him in Khurasan.’”

I later repeated in Basra to Mihyār what Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd had said—that people have travelled to me from the east and the west of the earth, yet none who came to me was the equal of Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. Mihyār responded, “He spoke the truth. I saw him with Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and the two of them would go together to…"