He was born in the year 270 AH.
He studied under Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī, Isḥāq ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ḥarbī, Bishr ibn Mūsā, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Naḍr al-Azdī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Walīd al-Fārisī—an associate of Abū ʿUmar al-Ḥawḍī— Ibrāhīm ibn Hāshim al-Baghawī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ḥulwānī, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī al-Shawārib, Ḥamzah ibn Muḥammad al-Kātib, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Jaʿd al-Washshāʾ, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Marzūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Naṣr, Idrīs ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm the Qur’an-reciter, Jaʿfar al-Firyābī, and many others.
Among those who narrated from him were Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Razqawayh, Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Abī al-Fawāris, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Bishrān, the preacher and brother of ʿAbd al-Malik, Abū Bakr al-Barqānī, Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, and several others.
Al-Dāraqutnī said, “My eyes have never seen the like of Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Ṣawwāf, nor of so-and-so in Egypt.”
Ibn Abī al-Fawāris remarked, “Abū ʿAlī was reliable and trustworthy; I have never seen anyone more scrupulous than he.”
He passed away in Shaʿbān 359 AH, at the age of eighty-nine.
A group informed us—through ʿAfīfah bint Muḥammad al-Farqāniyyah and ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Abī al-Muṭahhar—who said: ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣannāʿ related to us; Abū Nuʿaym related to us; Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Ṣawwāf related to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad related to us; Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd