Abu Hafs ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Kathīr al-Baghdādī al-Kattānī.
He was born in the year 300 AH. He studied under Ibn Mujāhid and listened to his Book on the Seven Readings.
He also heard ḥadīth from al-Baghawī, Abū Saʿīd al-ʿAdawī, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ḥaḍramī, Abū Muḥammad ibn Ṣāʿid, Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād, Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf the judge, Abū Dharr Aḥmad ibn al-Baghandī, Ismāʿīl al-Warrāq, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Abī Ḥayyah, Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ibn al-Buhlūl, Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr al-Shīʿī, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Mughallis, Abū ʿUbayd al-Maḥāmilī, Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUqdah, and many others.
Those who narrated from him include Abū Muḥammad al-Khallāl, Abū al-Qāsim al-Tanūkhī, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Muhtadī bi-Allāh, Jābir ibn Yāsīn, Abū Muḥammad ibn Hazarmardah, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Naqqūr, and others.
He likewise recited the Qur’an to Zayd ibn Abī Bilāl, Bakkār ibn Aḥmad, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Ḥarbī, and Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Dhuʾābah, after which he took the lead in teaching Qur’anic recitation in his mosque.
Among those who read to him were Aḥmad ibn Masrūr, Abū ʿAlī al-Sharmaqānī, Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Kūfī, and Abū al-Fawāris Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Awānī, the shaykh of al-Qalānisī.
Al-Khaṭīb said, “He is reliable.”
He passed away in Rajab of the year 390 AH, at the age of ninety.