Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d.463) said in his book, Al-Jāmiʿ li-Akhlāq al-Rāwī wa Ādāb al-Sāmiʿ (1/78):

“Students of ḥadīth must be the most complete of the people in manners, the strongest of the creation in humbleness, the greatest of them in purity and implementation of the Dīn, and the least of them in recklessness and anger, due to the constant listening they do of reports containing details of the finest characteristics of the Messenger of Allāh (صلى الله عليه وسلم) and his manners, and the historical reports of the select Salaf from his household and companions, as well as the ways of the scholars of ḥadīth and the good legacies of those who have passed. They take the most beautiful and best of all that and leave the lowest and least desirable of it.”

Shaykh Rabī ʿibn Hādī al-Madkhalī said, commenting on this beautiful statement: “This (statement) is to be memorized and implemented!” (1427/8/15).

Translated by: Mūsá Richardson