ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bishr ibn Mughafal ibn Ḥassān, a descendant of the Messenger of Allah’s Companion ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughafal al-Muzanī—hence al-Mughafalī al-Harawī—nicknamed “the White Falcon.”

He was born sometime after 270 AH.

He studied under: Aḥmad ibn Najdah, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jakkānī, the ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib, ʿImrān ibn Mūsā ibn Mujāshiʿ, Abū Khalīfah al-Jumaḥī, Yūsuf the Qāḍī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥaḍramī, ʿUbayd ibn Ghannām, Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Hisnījānī, al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān, ʿAbdān al-Ahwāzī, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ʿAllān al-Miṣrī, together with their peers in Egypt, the Two Sanctuaries, Syria, Iraq, and Persia.

He collected, authored, and rose to prominence in hadith and the other Islamic sciences.

Among those who narrated from him were: Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUqda—his own teacher—; ʿAmr ibn al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān—also his teacher—; Abū Bakr ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣibghī; al-Ḥākim; Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl; Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Khāzin; and many others besides them.

Al-Ḥākim said: “He was the undisputed imam of Khurasan. He led the people in the Hajj, delivered the sermon in Mecca, and the Maqām was brought before him while he sat inside the Kaʿba.

“I heard the people of Mecca say that no one else had ever been granted such authority. So great was his stature that he outranked the viziers, who would defer to his judgment.

“He once took up residence near Mecca while I was in Bukhara acting as his amanuensis. He related that during the dictation of an anecdote and some verses he was overcome by spiritual ecstasy and a brief fainting spell.

“He died the day after Friday. I heard his son Bishr say: ‘The last words he uttered were when he grasped his beard, raised his right hand toward the sky, and said, “Have mercy on the gray hairs of an old man…”’”