ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn al-Muhtadī Billāh (1).

Born: in Shawwāl 384 AH.

He studied under: ʿUthmān ibn ʿĪsā al-Bāqillānī the ascetic; the ḥadīth master Abū Bakr ibn Bukayr; and Ibn Razqūwayh.

Transmitters from him include: Abū Bakr al-Qāḍī, Yaḥyā ibn al-Ṭarrāḥ, and a number of others.

Among his contemporaries were al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb and Abū ʿAlī al-Bardānī.

Al-Khaṭīb said, “He was truthful.” He added, “He recited the Qur’an to Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṣaydalānī and reported from him, but he did not retain the material he had heard from him.”

Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ remarked, “He was reliable and trustworthy.”

He died in Jumādā al-Ūlā 464 AH.

Those who died that same year were:

• Abū Ṭāhir al-Mubārak ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Anṣārī al-Baghdādī, known as al-Ṣaffār, a distinguished and reliable man. He narrated from Abū Aḥmad al-Faradī and from Bakr ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥayd al-Naysābūrī in Rayy.

• Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Taḥḥān (2), who died on the day of Eid al-Fiṭr. He transmitted ḥadīths from Ibn Samʿūn and was a righteous man.

• Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Shādah al-Iṣbahānī (3), the judge, who passed away suddenly in the Sawād countryside.