He heard from Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd b. Faḥlūn, the last of the companions of Yūsuf al-Maghāmī(1).
Ibn Faḥlūn, his teacher, died in 346 AH, and he (Abū ʿAlī) was the last person to have seen him.
Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Khawlānī narrated from him and said: “He embarked on the quest for knowledge early, possessed a vast store of audition, belonged to the scholars, lived a long life, people depended on him, and he nearly reached one hundred years of age.”(2)
He was born in 326 AH.
Among those who also transmitted from him were Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAttāb, Abū ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū Bakr al-Muṣḥafī, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿUmar al-ʿUdhri, and others.
The highest chain of transmission in al-Andalus culminated with him.
He died in 421 AH, at the age of ninety-six.
In that same year, other senior figures also passed away: the judge Abū Bakr al-Ḥīrī(3); Abū Saʿīd b. Mūsā al-Ṣayrafī(4); the ruler of the age, Maḥmūd b. Subuktikīn(5); Abū Ibrāhīm Ismāʿīl b. Yanal al-Maḥbūbī(6); and Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Aḥmad al-Bāṭirqānī.