Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil, and I noticed that Yaḥyā would yield to him in matters of expertise.

He also said: I heard Abū Saʿīd al-Ashajj. He came out to us on a bitterly cold morning, trembling from the chill, and asked, “Do you have cold like this where you live?”

I replied, “We get weather like this in autumn and spring; at times we go to bed while the river is still flowing, then wake up needing an axe to break the ice.”

He asked, “From which part of Khurasan are you?”

I answered, “From Bukhara.”

His son remarked, “He is from the homeland of Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil.” Abū Saʿīd then said to him, “When someone by whom people seek to draw near (to Allah) comes to you, recognise his rightful status, for he is an imam.”

He also said: I heard Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Thābit al-Shāshī relate: I heard Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways say, “No one ever took from me what Muhammad did. He looked through my books, found them worn, and asked, ‘May I restore them?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Under that pretext he extracted the greater part of my hadith.”

He said: I heard Abū Isḥāq al-Marwazī say: I entered upon ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr just as ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was bidding him farewell, and I heard him say, “Say whatever you like about the refinement of ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and say whatever you like about the learning of Muhammad.”

He said: I heard Muhammad ibn al-Layth say—when ʿAbd Allah and Muhammad were mentioned in his presence and some in the gathering preferred ʿAbd Allah over Muhammad—“If you give him precedence, then give it to him in poetry and Arabic, but do not prefer him to Muhammad in knowledge.”

He said: I heard Ḥāshid ibn Ismāʿīl say: “ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān used to slip me some of his hadith that were difficult for him, asking me to present them to Muhammad, and he hoped that Muhammad would not discover the source. Whenever I put something before him he would say, ‘Is that where it came from?’”