Abu Saʿd al-Samʿānī said, “People would travel to him for the sake of the Arabic language, and he was abundant in transmitting its books.”

Khamīs al-Ḥawzī (1) said, “He read Sībawayh’s Kitāb with Ibn Kurdān (2) and kept regular attendance at the circle of Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Rifāʿī, a disciple of al-Sīrāfī; he used to say, ‘I recited to him from the poetry of the Arabs one thousand diwans (3).’” He added that the man was an accomplished poet (4) and inclined toward Muʿtazilī doctrine.

Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Jīlī remarked, “He was one of the court notaries of Wāsiṭ, learned in literature, a reliable transmitter of it, and outstanding in grammar. In his time he became the foremost authority in Iraq on the Arabic language, and scholarly journeys for this discipline ended with him …,” after which he listed the names of his teachers.

Those who narrated from him include al-Ḥumaydī and Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh, the judge of Baṣrah, … until he said:

“Ibn al-Samarkandī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Bannāʾ, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Jullābī told us: Abū Ghālib authorised us.”

He died in mid-Rajab, 462 AH.

I say: he lived to an advanced age.