ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Faraj ibn Lāl al-Hamadhānī, a Shāfiʿī.
He narrated ḥadith from his father; al-Qāsim ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jallāb; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Zaʿfarānī; Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār; ʿAlī ibn al-Faḍl al-Sutūrī; Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī; Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Ḥamdawayh al-Marwazī; Ḥafṣ ibn ʿUmar al-Ardabīlī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Shawdhab, and many others.
He journeyed in search of knowledge, possessed an exceptional memory, and had deep expertise.
Among those who transmitted from him were Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Abharī, Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Ṣūfī, Ḥumayd ibn al-Maʾmūn, Abū Masʿūd Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Bajalī, Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbbād, Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn al-Ḥasan, and others.
He was an imām of wide-ranging accomplishment.
Shīrawayh said: “He was trustworthy, the unparalleled scholar of his age, the muftī of the town. He authored several works on the sciences of ḥadith, though he was chiefly renowned for his fiqh.
I have seen his book al-Sunan and his Muʿjam al-Ṣaḥābah; I have never encountered anything finer. Supplication at his grave is answered.”
He was born in 308 AH and died in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir 398 AH (1).