ibn Yaʿqūb al-Qāḍī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, Isḥāq ibn Khālawayh al-Bābāsīrī—whom he met in Wāsiṭ—, Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿUmar ibn Abī al-Aḥwaṣ, Abū Maʿshar al-Dārimī, Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf ibn Hāshim al-Bustī, al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Kumayt, al-Ṣūfī al-Kabīr, Abū Zaydān, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdūs, and others.
Those who narrated from him included Ibn Rizqawayh, Abū’l-Fatḥ ibn Abī al-Fawāris, Abū Bakr al-Barqānī, Abū Nuʿaym, Abū Isḥāq al-Barmakī, and many others.
He was born in 274 AH.
Al-Khaṭīb said, “He was trustworthy and firmly grounded.”
I asked al-Barqānī, “Which of the two is more to your liking, he or al-Qaṭīʿī?”
He replied, “That is not something one should even ask about; Ibn Māsi is reliable, sound, and no criticism has ever been raised against him (1).”
I say: Ibn Māsi died in Rajab of the year 369 AH.
In that same year there also passed away: the shaykh of the Sufis, Abū ʿAbd Allah Aḥmad ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Rūdhbārī in Ṣūr; the leading Ḥanbalī scholar, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Shāqlā, while still middle-aged; the hadith master of Isfahan, Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Zaʿfarānī; the judge of Damascus, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad, nephew of Walīd al-Ẓāhirī; the erudite scholar Abū Sahl al-Ṣuʿlūkī; the Chief Judge, Abū’l-Ḥasan ibn Umm Shaybān; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sahl, the silk-spinner of Isfahan; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Naqqāsh, the hadith scholar of Tinnīs; Abū ʿAlī Makhlad ibn Jaʿfar al-Bāqarḥī; and Abū’l-Shaykh, the ḥāfiẓ.