Ismāʿīl replied, “This is an excellent ḥadīth. I know of no other report in the world transmitted with this chain on this subject except this single narration, yet it is defective. Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl related it to us—Wuhaib related it to us—Suhayl related it to us—from ʿAwn ibn ʿAbd Allāh, as his own statement.” Muḥammad continued, “That wording is preferable, for there is no record that Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah ever heard directly from Suhayl.”

Muslim then said to him, “No one dislikes you except an envier, and I bear witness that there is no one on earth like you.” (1)

Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn al-Akhram said, “I heard our colleagues relate that when al-Bukhārī entered Nishapur, four thousand mounted men came out on horseback to receive him, not counting those who rode mules or donkeys, nor those who came on foot.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥammād al-Āmulī said, “I wish I were but a single hair upon the chest of Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl.”

Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim said, “I heard Hāshid ibn Ismāʿīl and another man say: The ḥadīth specialists of Basra used to run after al-Bukhārī in search of ḥadīth while he was still a youth, until they would overtake him, sit him down (2) in some street, and thousands would gather around him—most of them scribes writing from him. They said, ‘At that time Abū ʿAbd Allāh was a young man whose beard had not yet sprouted.’” (3)