a Shāfiʿī authority, theologian, grammarian, Qur’an exegete, linguist, Sufi, and the leading shaykh of Khurasan.
Al-Ḥākim said: “He was the luminary of his age and the last of his peers. He was born in 296 AH, and his first formal audition took place in 305 AH. He kept company with Ibn Khuzaymah, then with Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī; he debated and excelled. Later he was summoned to Isfahan, but when news reached him of the death of his uncle Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṣuʿlūkī he slipped away in secret and arrived in Nīshāpūr in 337 AH, after which he moved his family from Isfahan.
He issued legal opinions and taught in Nīshāpūr for a little over thirty years.
Among those from whom he learned were the “Imam of the Imams” Ibn Khuzaymah, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj, Aḥmad ibn al-Māsarjisī, Abū Quraysh Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah, Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar al-Muḥammadābādhī, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim. While in Baghdad he studied with Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Hāshimī, Ibn al-Anbārī, and al-Maḥāmilī.
He would often refuse to transmit hadith until 365 AH, when he finally agreed to dictate them. I heard Abū Bakr al-Ṣibghī more than once seeking protection for the Ustadh Abū Sahl, saying, “May Allah bless you; may no evil eye befall you.”
It is related that Abū al-Walīd Ḥassān the jurist was asked, “Who has greater merit, Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl or Abū Sahl al-Ṣuʿlūkī?” He replied, “Who could ever equal Abū Sahl?”
The jurist Abū Bakr al-Ṣayrafī said, “The people of Khurasan have never seen anyone like Abū Sahl.”
The statesman Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbbād declared, “We have never seen anyone comparable to Abū Sahl—and he himself never met his equal.”
Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥākim remarked, “Abū Sahl was the town’s mufti and jurist, the most formidable debater among the Shāfiʿīs we encountered in Khurasan; in addition, he was a man of letters, a poet, a grammarian, and a scribe.”