this story, adding, “I only adopted my kunyah because of yours.” (1)

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Baṭṭah said: I heard al-Najjād relate from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, who said, “When Abū Zurʿah arrived in our city he stayed with us. My father said to me, ‘My son, I have exchanged my voluntary prayers for the opportunity to review traditions with this shaykh.’ (2)

Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad Jazara reported: I heard Abū Zurʿah say, “I wrote down one hundred thousand hadith from Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā al-Rāzī, and another hundred thousand from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah.”
I said to him, “I have been told that you have memorised one hundred thousand hadith. Can you dictate a thousand of them to me from memory?”
He replied, “No—but if they are recited to me I will recognize them.” (3)

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I asked Abū Zurʿah, “Is it conceivable that you wrote one hundred thousand hadith from Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā?”
He answered, “A hundred thousand is a large number.”
I said, “Then fifty thousand?”
He said, “Yes—sixty or even seventy thousand.”
Someone who counted only the sections on ablution and prayer told me they came to eighteen thousand hadith. (4)

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Mandah the ḥāfiẓ said: I heard Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Ḥamkawayh in Rayy say:
Abū Zurʿah was asked about a man who had sworn by divorce that Abū Zurʿah knew two hundred thousand hadith by heart—had the man invalidated his oath?
He replied, “No.”
Then Abū Zurʿah added, “I do indeed know two hundred thousand hadith as readily as a person knows, ‘Say: He is Allah, the One’ (al-Ikhlāṣ 1), and in joint review I can recall three hundred thousand hadith.”