Ṣāliḥ Jazara said: Salamah ibn Shabīb narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Aʿyan narrated to me; Zuhayr narrated to us; Umm ʿAmr bint Shimr narrated to us; I heard Suwayd ibn Ghafalah say (1): “wa ʿīsin ʿīn.”

He intended the words: “ḥūr ʿīn” (wide-eyed maidens) — Qur’an 56:22.

Ṣāliḥ continued: “I repeated this to Abū Zurʿah. He sat there amazed and remarked, ‘I have committed to memory ten thousand hadith on the various qirāʾāt (Qur’anic readings).’

“I asked, ‘And do you have this one by heart?’

“He replied, ‘No.’ (2)

Ibn ʿAdī said: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn ʿUthmān; I heard Ibn Wārah; I heard Isḥāq ibn Rāhūyah say, ‘Every hadith that Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī does not recognize has no foundation.’ (3)

Al-Ḥākim said: I heard the jurist Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad; I heard Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Thaqafī say:

“When Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd returned to Rayy, the people asked him to narrate to them, but he refused, saying, ‘Shall I narrate to you after Aḥmad, Ibn Maʿīn, Ibn al-Madīnī, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, and Abū Khaythamah have all attended my gathering?’

“They answered, ‘But we have a young man here who can recite, sitting by sitting, everything you have narrated. Stand, Abū Zurʿah!’

“So he rose and rattled off everything Qutaybah had transmitted; whereupon Qutaybah proceeded to narrate to them.” (4)

Saʿīd ibn ʿAmr al-Ḥāfiẓ said: I heard Abū Zurʿah say, “I entered Basra and attended Sulaymān al-Shādhakūnī on a Friday, and he narrated a hadith…” (5)