ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī, the ḥāfiẓ, said: Abū ʿUthmān came to Jurjān with his father, where he listened to ḥadith and, for a period, transmitted them with precision. Beneficial selections were excerpted from his narrations. He performed the pilgrimage three times and took part in the campaigns against India and the Byzantines, marching with Sultan Maḥmūd (1). After the death of his brother ʿAbd al-Raḥmān he presided over a dictation circle.

ʿAbd al-Ghāfir said in his (Siyāq): “An elderly shaykh, trustworthy in ḥadith; he heard extensively in Khurāsān and Iraq, and compilations were produced from his narrations.” He then listed his teachers (2).

He further stated: “He died in the month of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, in the year 451 AH.”

In that same year al-Basāsīrī was killed (3), as were the Qur’an reciter Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Abī al-Faḍl al-Sharmaqānī (4); the reciter Abū al-Muẓaffar ʿAbd Allah ibn Shabīb; Abū Ṭālib al-ʿUshārī (5); the Seljuq sultan Chaghrī Beg (6) at Sarakhs; and his brother King Ibrāhīm Yinal (7)—strangled by his brother Ṭughril Beg (8); Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Maḥmūd al-Zawzanī (9); and the polymath Qāsim ibn al-Fatḥ al-Andalusī (10).