Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Rāzī, the ḥāfiẓ, say: “Abū Zurʿah was born in the year 194 AH. He left Rayy in search of knowledge when he was thirteen, stayed in Kufah for ten months, then returned to Rayy. Afterwards he set out on a second journey and remained away from his homeland for fourteen years. He began holding hadith sessions when he was thirty-two.
He (Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān) added: ‘He died in 260 AH at the age of sixty-four.’

I say: This statement is incorrect concerning the year of his death; the sound report is the one already cited above.

Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥarb al-ʿAskarī related that he saw Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī leading the angels in prayer in the fourth heaven. I asked, ‘How did you attain this station?’ He replied, ‘By raising the hands in prayer when going into bowing and when rising from it.’(1)

Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Qurashī said: I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad recount, ‘One night I was discussing the hadith masters with my father. He said, “My son, memorization used to be with us; then it moved to Khurasan—to these four young men.”
I asked, “Who are they?”
He answered, “Abū Zurʿah, the one from Rayy; Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, the one from Bukhara; ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the one from Samarqand; and al-Ḥasan ibn Shujāʿ, the one from Balkh.”
I asked, “Father, which of them has the best memorization?”
He said, “As for Abū Zurʿah, he is the most copious in narration; as for al-Bukhārī, he has the deepest understanding; as for ʿAbd Allah—meaning al-Dārimī—he is the most precise; and as for Ibn Shujāʿ, he is the most systematic in arranging the material by subject headings.”(2)

Al-Ḥākim said: Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī narrated to us: I heard Abū Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim say, ‘I heard Abū Zurʿah say: While I was standing in prayer reciting, “And abandon what remains…’”