Abū Hāmid Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Azhari al-Shurūṭī (1), who was eighty-nine years old; the Andalusian poet and vizier Abū al-Walīd Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ghālib ibn Zaydūn al-Makhzūmī al-Qurṭubī (2); the governor of Khurasan, Abū ʿAlī Ḥassān ibn Saʿīd al-Makhzūmī al-Manīʿī (3), the benefactor who endowed the Manīʿī Mosque in Nīshāpūr; the poet of Qayrawān, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Rashīq al-Azdī (4); the transmitter of Herat, Abū ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Aḥmad al-Malīḥī (5); the transmitter of Baghdad, Abū al-Ghanāʾim Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Dajjājī, the market inspector (6); the transmitter of Marw, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Haytham ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Turābī (7), who reached ninety-six years; and the transmitter Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Washāḥ al-Zaynabī, their client from Baghdad.

It was said that Abū ʿUmar would warmly receive Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm, converse with him at length, and that Ibn Ḥazm learned the science of hadith from him.

Our teacher Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Fatḥ said, “Abū ʿUmar was the most knowledgeable person in al-Andalus concerning the Sunnah, the transmitted reports, and the differing opinions of the scholars of the various regions.”

He also said, “During the early part of his life he followed the Ẓāhirī school for a long period; afterwards he adopted the use of analogy without binding himself to any particular authority, although he frequently inclined toward the school of al-Shāfiʿī.” Thus he spoke. What is generally known, however, is that Abū ʿUmar was Mālikī.