ibn Mandah—Mandah’s given name was Ibrāhīm ibn al-Walīd ibn Sandah ibn Baṭṭah ibn Ustandār (1) ibn Jihār-Bukht. Some report that Ustandār’s name was Fayrūzān. He embraced Islam when the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ took Isfahān; his allegiance was to the tribe of ʿAbd al-Qays. Formerly a Zoroastrian, he accepted the faith and was appointed over certain districts of Isfahān. He bore the nisbahs al-ʿAbdī and al-Isfahānī, was a ḥāfiẓ, and authored many works.
He was born in 310 AH, or possibly 311 AH, and his first formal audition of hadith was in 318 AH.
He heard hadith from his father; from his father’s uncle ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaḥyā ibn Mandah; from Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Kufi al-Karrānī (2); from Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ; from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Karmānī; from Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Naḍr—better known as Ibn Abī Hurayrah; from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ibrāhīm al-Muqriʾ; from Muḥammad ibn Ḥamzah ibn ʿUmārah; from Abū ʿAmr ibn Ḥakīm; from Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Lunbānī (3); and from many other shaykhs in Isfahān.
He also studied with Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī and his peers in Mecca; with Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-ʿAlawī in Medina; with Aḥmad ibn Zakariyyā al-Maqdisī and several others in Jerusalem; with Abū Ḥāmid ibn Bilāl; with Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Qaṭṭān; with Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Maydānī; with Ḥājib ibn Aḥmad; with Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm; with Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Akhram; with Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad; with Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar; with al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Muʿādh Quhiyār; and with Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Allāh.