Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim said: Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl was invited to the orchard of one of his companions. After he had led the people in the ẓuhr prayer, he stood to offer voluntary rakʿahs. When he finished, he lifted the hem of his shirt and said to one of those with him, “Look—do you see anything under my garment?” They found a wasp that had stung him in sixteen or seventeen places, and his body had swollen from it. Someone asked, “Why did you not leave the prayer the very first time it stung you?” He replied, “I was in the middle of a surah, and I wanted to complete it.” (1)
He also said: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd ibn Jaʿfar say, “I heard the scholars of Basra declare, ‘There is no one on earth like Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl in knowledge and righteousness.’” (2)
Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥammād al-Āmulī narrated to us: “I would love to be a single hair on the chest of Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl.” (3)
Abū ʿAmr Aḥmad ibn Naṣr al-Khaffāf said, “Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl—the devout, pure scholar, the like of whom I have never seen—narrated to us. I have repeated this for the purpose of classification.” (4)
Al-Ḥākim said: Muḥammad ibn Ḥāmid al-Bazzāz narrated to us: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Jābir say, “I heard Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, when al-Bukhārī arrived in Naysābūr, say, ‘Go to this righteous man and learn from him.’”