It is reported that ʿUbaydullāh ibn ʿAmr said:
“We were with Al-Aʿmash – Allāh have mercy on him – while he was asking Imām Abū Ḥanīfah about legal issues, and Abū Ḥanīfah answered him. Al-Aʿmash said, ‘Where did you get this from?’ Abū Ḥanīfah replied, ‘You narrated to us from Ibrāhīm such-and-such, and you narrated to us from Al-Shaʿbī such-and-such.’ Al-Aʿmash then said, ‘O scholars of Fiqh, you are the doctors, and we are the pharmacists.’”
Naṣīḥat Ahl al-Ḥadīth (p. 26)
It is reported that a man said to Imām Abū Ḥanīfah – Allāh have mercy on him:
“Fear Allāh!” Abū Ḥanīfah began to tremble, his face turned pale, and he lowered his head. He then said, “May Allāh reward you with good.”
Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (6/400)
It is reported that Imām Al-Zuhrī – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
“I used to sit often with ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn (Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn), and I never saw anyone more knowledgeable than him, yet he spoke very little.”
Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (20/386)
It is reported that ʿAbdullāh b. Al-Mubārak – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
I borrowed a pen in the land of Syria, and it slipped my mind to return it to its owner. When I arrived in Marw, I looked and found it still with me, so I returned to the land of Syria and gave it back to its owner.
Tārīkh Baghdād (11/407)
It is reported that ʿUmar b. Al-Khaṭṭāb – Allāh be pleased with him – wrote (by way of instructions):
Learn Sūrah Al-Barāʾah (At-Tawbah), and teach your women Sūrah Al-Nūr. And have them wear silver for adornment.
Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, Al-Sunan #1003; Al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab Al-Īmān #2213.
It is reported that ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān – Allāh be pleased with him – said:
I do not like it that a day or night comes upon me without me looking at the speech of Allāh, meaning reading from the muṣḥaf.
Imām Aḥmad, Al-Zuhd #675.
It is reported that Al-Fuḍayl b. ʿAyyāḍ – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
The true faqīh (scholar) is the one who the fear of Allāh makes talk and the fear of Allāh makes silent. If he speaks it is by the Book and the Sunnah, and if he is silent, it is by the Book and the Sunnah. And if something is confusing to him and unclear, he withholds judgement and refers it back to whoever knows about it.
Ibn Baṭṭah, Ibṭāl Al-Ḥiyal p18, 19.
It is reported that Imām Mālik said to one of his companions:
Do not leave your house a lot, except for something that you must do. And do not sit in a gathering in which you do not benefit some knowledge.
Al-Qāḍī ʿAyyāḍ, Tartīb Al-Madārik 2:63
ʿAbdullāh b. Masʿūd – Allāh be pleased with him – said:
The worst of the worst (major) sins are: to associate partners with Allāh, to lose hope of the aid of Allāh, to despair of the mercy of Allāh, and to feel safe from the plans of Allāh.
Al-Ṭabarī, Al-Tafsīr (Qurān 4: 31). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Ibn Kathīr in his tafsīr of the same verse.
It is reported that Al-Ḥasan Al-Baṣrī – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
People will remain upon good as long as they vary (some are more knowledgeable, righteous etc); when they become equal, that is when they are destroyed.
Al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab Al-Īmān #8664 (Al-Rushd ed.).