—a client of the prince Yazīd, the brother of Muʿāwiyah.

His grandfather Khalaf ibn Maʿdān was the first of the family to enter al-Andalus, doing so in the entourage (1) of the Andalusian ruler ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Hishām, known as al-Dākhil.

Abū Muḥammad was born in Córdoba in 384 AH.

He began receiving ḥadith in 400 AH and thereafter, learning from a number of scholars, among them: Yaḥyā ibn Masʿūd ibn Wajh al-Jannah—the companion of Qāsim ibn Aṣbagh and his most senior shaykh; Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Jasūr (2); Yūnus ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughīth al-Qāḍī; Humām (3) ibn Aḥmad al-Qāḍī; Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd ibn Nabāt; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rabīʿ al-Tamīmī; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khālid; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān; Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭalamankī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf ibn Nāmī; and Aḥmad (4) ibn Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Qāsim ibn Aṣbagh.

He even went so far as to transmit from Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr and Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Anas al-ʿUdhri.

The finest book he possessed was Sunan al-Nasāʾī, which he held (5) through the chain: Ibn Rabīʿ → Ibn al-Aḥmar → the author.

The longest chain he carried for Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim placed five narrators between him and Imām Muslim, whereas the shortest isnād I have seen from him links him to Wakīʿ through only three transmitters.

Those who narrated from him include: his son Abū Rāfiʿ al-Faḍl, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī, and the father of (6)