the disciples of Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿarī. Al-Ḥākim Abu ʿAbd Allāh selected narrations from him, and he began holding dictation sessions in 382 AH.

He was sharp in his grasp of the Shāfiʿī school, an instinctive jurist who understood kalām, and for a time he was entrusted with the judgeship of Nishapur.

Those who transmitted from him include: al-Ḥākim—who was older than he—Abu Muḥammad al-Juwaynī, Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqī, Abu al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Abu Bakr al-Khaṭīb, Abu Ṣāliḥ the muezzin, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣaffār, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl the Qurʾān-reciter, Muḥammad ibn Maʾmūn al-Mutawallī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Muẓaffarī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kisāʾī, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Muzakkī, the Chief Judge Abu Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Nāṣiḥī, the Ḥanafī shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥasanuwayh, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-ʿUmayrī the ascetic, Abu Bakr ibn Khalaf, Abu ʿAbd Allāh al-Thaqafī al-Raʾīs, Makkī ibn Manṣūr al-Sallār, Asʿad ibn Masʿūd al-ʿUtbī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Kāmakhī, Naṣr Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Khushnāmī, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Akhram, ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn Muḥammad al-Shīrawayh—the last of his students—and many others besides them.

ʿAbd al-Ghaffar al-Fārisī says in his History: “Late in life he suffered a hearing impairment. Nevertheless, texts continued to be read before him and he remained cautious until the condition worsened about two or three years before his death, when he could scarcely hear at all. Among his peers he enjoyed the soundest auditions, the greatest accuracy, and the most complete devotion and conviction.”

He authored works on principles of jurisprudence and hadith.

I add: he also studied the variant Qurʾānic readings under Aḥmad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Imām, a student of al-Ushnānī, and we heard al-Shāfiʿī’s Musnad through his transmission.