Bakr Ahmad ibn Ibrāhīm (1) ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Shādhān al-Baghdādī—the cloth-merchant and scholar of legal theory.
He was born in Rabīʿ al-Awwal, in the year 339 AH.
His father introduced him to the study of ḥadith at an exceptionally early age; when he was five years old, or thereabout, he listened to narrations from:
Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Sammāk, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān al-ʿAbbādānī (2), Maymūn ibn Isḥāq, Abū Sahl ibn Ziyād, Ḥamzah al-Dahqān, Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, al-Najjād, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Durustawayh the grammarian, Abū ʿUmar al-Zāhid, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Māti (3), Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān al-Ādamī, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Ṭastī, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Zubayr al-Qurashī, Mukram ibn Aḥmad, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Isḥāq al-Khurāsānī, Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Najīḥ, Aḥmad ibn Kāmil the judge, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿIlm, Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sīmā the bonesetter, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī al-Khuṭabī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Burayh al-Hāshimī, Daʿlaj ibn Aḥmad, Abū Bakr al-Naqqāsh, Aḥmad ibn Nīkhāb (4) al-Ṭayyibī, Ibn Qāniʿ, Abū Bakr ibn Miqsam, Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Ṣawwāf, Ḥāmid al-Raffāʾ, Shujāʿ ibn Jaʿfar, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Iskāfī, Abū Sulaymān al-Ḥarrānī, and ʿAbd