and Abū al-Ḥasan; al-Dāraqutnī—who was his peer—ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Maydānī, al-Haytham ibn Aḥmad al-Dimashqī the dyer, Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Simsār, Abū Bakr al-Barqānī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Maḥāmilī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ibrāhīm al-Aṣīlī, and others.
He said, “I was born in the year 301 AH.”
Al-Ḥākim remarked, “He was one of the leading imams of the Muslims, among the most knowledgeable preservers of the school, exceptionally sharp in reasoning, and the most ascetic regarding worldly matters. I heard Abū Bakr al-Bazzāz say, ‘I accompanied (1) the jurist Abū Zayd from Nīshāpūr to Mecca, and to the best of my knowledge the angels did not record a single sin against him.’”
Al-Khaṭīb said, “Abū Zayd taught in Baghdad, then resided near Mecca, where he narrated the Ṣaḥīḥ, and he is the foremost of those who transmitted it (2).”
Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī said, “Among them is Abū Zayd al-Marwazī, a companion of Abū Isḥāq al-Marwazī.”
He died in Marw in Rajab of the year 371 AH.
He was a meticulous guardian of the school, sound in judgment, and famed for his renunciation of the world.
Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī and the jurists of Marw (3) studied under him.
Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar informed us; ʿAbd al-Awwal ibn ʿĪsā informed us; Abū Ismāʿīl al-Anṣārī informed us; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl told us—he said: I heard Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Marwazī say, “I heard Abū Sahl Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Marwazī say, ‘I heard the jurist Abū Zayd al-Marwazī say:
“I was asleep between…’”