ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zakariyyā, the Baghdadi al-Dhahabī—celebrated as “the one who refines gold from adulteration.”
He was born in Shawwāl of 305 AH. He said, “My first hadith audition was in 312 AH.”
With his father’s close supervision he heard hadith from Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd, Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān al-Ṭūsī, Riḍwān al-Ṣaydalanī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Ḥaḍramī, Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf the judge, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Nayrūz al-Anmāṭī, Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād al-Naysābūrī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sayf al-Sijistānī, Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥammād, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn al-Muhtadī, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ibn al-Buhlūl, Ismāʿīl ibn al-ʿAbbās, the judge al-Maḥāmilī, his brother Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim, and many others.
Those who transmitted from him include Hibat Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-Lālakāʾī, Abū Muḥammad al-Khallāl, Abū Saʿd al-Sammān, Abū Ṭālib al-Muḥassin ibn Shahfīrūz the jurist, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Sharawī the jurist, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Qaṭṭān, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Naqqūr, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAlī al-Anmāṭī, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Muhtadī bi-llāh, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Busrī, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Zaynabī, and a large company besides.
The two hadith masters Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Abī al-Fawāris and Abū Bakr al-Baqqāl produced selected collections from his narrations.
Al-Khaṭīb said: “He was trustworthy.” He died in Ramaḍān of 393 AH.