Those who narrated from him include the two ḥadith masters, Tammām al-Rāzī and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Miṣrī—both of whom had originally been his teachers—as well as Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī, Abū Bakr al-Bāṭirqānī, Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb, Abū Naṣr ibn Ḥabbān, Abū Naṣr al-Sijzī, the judge Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Quḍāʿī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Shabīb al-Kāghadhī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭalḥah al-Niʿālī, the judge Abū al-Ḥasan al-Khilaʿī, and many others besides.
He was distinguished for truthfulness, piety, and precision, and he amassed the major Musnad collections.
Hamzah al-Sahmī (1) said, “Al-Mālīnī entered Jurjān in the year 364 AH, and he undertook numerous journeys to Iṣfahān, Transoxiana, Egypt, and the Ḥijāz.”
He further said (2), “He died in 409 AH”—so he claimed, yet this is an error.
Abū Isḥāq al-Ḥabbāl stated, “He passed away on Tuesday, the seventeenth of Shawwāl in 412 AH.” (3)
I say: It appears he died in Egypt, and Imām Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ mentioned him in Tabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah.
ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad the ḥāfiẓ informed us; Jaʿfar ibn Munīr informed us; Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī informed us; Mubārak ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār informed us, saying, “I heard ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAlī al-Azajī say:
‘I received from Abū Saʿd al-Mālīnī the fee for copying and collating—fifty…’”