1787 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; my father narrated to me; Hasan ibn Musa narrated to us; Abu Hilal narrated to us, from Ghalib al-Qattan, from Bakr ibn Abd Allah, who said:
“Whoever would like to see the most knowledgeable man we encountered in his time should look at al-Hasan, for we met no one more learned than him. Whoever would like to see the most scrupulous man of his era should look at Ibn Sirin; he would even forgo some lawful things out of fear of sin. Whoever would like to see the most devoted worshipper we met in his time should look at Thabit al-Bunani; we never encountered anyone more devoted than he—you could observe him on a fiercely hot day, fasting from the day’s first light to its last, cooling the space between his forehead and his feet. And whoever would like to see the man with the strongest memory we encountered in his time, the one most likely to relate a hadith exactly as he heard it, should look at Qatadah.”