Sufyān—the people of Iraq would be hard-pressed to meet anyone like him—and the second was Harb ibn Ismāʿīl, one of those who recorded my narrations. (1)

• Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: “Abū Muḥammad was my father’s companion while he was in Syria; my father wrote down hadith from him in Damascus. (2)

• Ibn Abī Yaʿlā said: “He—meaning Harb—was the jurist of the town, and the ruler had put him in charge of the judiciary and other public affairs there. (3)

• Abū Bakr al-Khallāl said of him: “A venerable man; Abū Bakr al-Marrūdhī urged me to travel to him. (4)

• Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī wrote: “The Imām, the erudite scholar, Abū Muḥammad Harb ibn Ismāʿīl al-Kirmānī—the jurist, disciple of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal—journeyed far and wide in search of knowledge. (5)

• Ibn al-Qayyim said in his Nūniyyah:
Look at Harb and at the consensus he conveyed …
Bravo, noble youth of Kirmān! (6)