Ibn al-Farrāʾ, and Abū Saʿd Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Zawzanī.

Among the earlier authorities who related ḥadith from him was the Qur’an-reciter Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī.

He issued legal rulings and taught; many disciples graduated under him, and the mantle of leadership in jurisprudence devolved upon him. In his day he was counted the leading scholar of Iraq, well versed in the sciences of the Qur’an, its exegesis, dialectical reasoning, and legal theory. His father had been a distinguished Ḥanafī, one of the dignitaries of the court. The father died when Abū Yaʿlā was ten years old, whereupon his Qur’an instructor drilled him in the section on acts of worship from al-Khiraqī’s Mukhtaṣar; jurisprudence then delighted him. He moved to the study circle of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥāmid (1), the Shaykh of the Ḥanbalīs, kept his company for years, and excelled in fiqh under him. At his teacher’s behest he assumed the chair of instruction in 402 AH, and his first audition from ʿAlī ibn Maʿrūf had been in 385 AH.

He also heard (ḥadith) in Mecca and Damascus from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Naṣr, and in Aleppo. He then compiled the book “Ibtāl Taʾwīl al-Ṣifāt” (Refutation of the Figurative Interpretation of the Divine Attributes). People rose against him because it contained weak and fabricated reports, whereupon the creed that Caliph al-Qādir bi-llāh had composed was circulated among the scholars. Abū Yaʿlā’s book was brought to the Caliph, who was pleased with it; events and tribulations ensued—may Allah grant us well-being—until the vizier ʿAlī ibn al-Muslima reconciled the two camps and publicly declared: “The Qur’an is the speech of Allah, and the narrations regarding the attributes are to be accepted as they have come.” (2)

After that, Abū Yaʿlā was appointed judge in the Capital Domain and the Ḥarīm, together with the judgeships of Ḥarrān (3) and Hulwān (4). He had recited the Qur’an in all ten canonical readings and was devoted to worship, night vigil, and constant