Ibn Ḥibbān said in al-Thiqāt: “Abū ʿĪsā was among those who collected, authored, memorised, and engaged in scholarly discussion.”

Abū Saʿd al-Idrīsī said: “Abū ʿĪsā was the very yardstick of retention.”

Al-Ḥākim said: “I heard ʿUmar ibn ʿAllak remark, ‘When al-Bukhārī died, he left no one in Khurāsān equal to Abū ʿĪsā in knowledge, memorisation, piety, and asceticism. He wept until he went blind and remained sightless for years.’ (1)

Abū Saʿd al-Idrīsī also transmitted with his own chain that Abū ʿĪsā said: “While on the road to Mecca I had copied two fascicles of a shaykh’s ḥadith. I found him and asked him about them, thinking the fascicles were still with me. I questioned him and he responded, only to discover that the two fascicles in my possession were blank sheets. He kept reading to me from his text, then looked over, saw the blank paper in my hand, and said, ‘Are you not ashamed before me?’ I told him my situation and said, ‘I have memorised it all.’

“He said, ‘Recite.’ I recited it to him, but he would not believe me and asked, ‘Did you commit it to memory before coming?’ I replied, ‘Narrate something else to me.’ He then related forty ḥadith and said, ‘Now, go ahead.’ I repeated them back to him without missing a single letter. (2)

Our teacher, the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Fatḥ al-Qushayrī (3) said: ‘Tirmidh’ is pronounced with a kasra, and it is …"