Abū ʿImrān al-Ṭarsūsī said, “I heard Abū Bakr al-Athram say, ‘I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal declare: “Beneath the vault of heaven I know of no one who preserves the reports of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ better than Abū Masʿūd al-Rāzī.”’

Abū Shaykh related, “I heard Ibn al-Aṣfar say, ‘I sat with Aḥmad, who praised Ibn Abī Shaybah and mentioned a number of others. Yet I have never seen anyone retain material that was not actually in his possession better than Abū Masʿūd (1).’

Qāḍī Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Farrāʾ records in Tabaqāt Aṣḥāb al-Imām Aḥmad, in the biography of Abū Masʿūd, that he transmitted from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal the statement: “Whoever directs someone to a partisan of speculative opinion has helped to demolish Islam (2).”

Abū Masʿūd al-Rāzī said, “I began writing down hadith when I was twelve years old.”

I say: He embarked early on the quest for knowledge, for his father too was a man of hadith. It is also said that he was not able to transmit directly from his father.

Abū Masʿūd further said, “I was commended for my memorisation at the age of eighteen, and I was nicknamed al-Ruwayziyy the ḥāfiẓ (3).”

The ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Jārūd reported: “I heard the ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm ibn Ūrma say, ‘No one comparable to Abū Masʿūd al-Rāzī, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mukharrimī remains.’”