under Abu Hafs al-Kattani. He therefore encouraged his son, Ahmad, to attend hadith sessions and study jurisprudence; so the boy began listening when he was eleven years old. He journeyed to Basra at the age of twenty, to Nishapur at twenty-three, to Syria when he was already middle-aged, to Mecca, and to other lands as well.

He wrote extensively, excelled in this field, outstripped his contemporaries, collected and compiled narrations, produced reliable critical editions, probed hidden defects, declared some narrators weak and others trustworthy, authored historical works, clarified obscure points, and became—without qualification—the most knowledgeable memorizer of his age.

He heard from: Abu ʿUmar ibn Mahdi al-Farisi; Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Salt al-Ahwazi; Abu al-Husayn ibn al-Mutayyim; Husayn ibn al-Hasan al-Juwaliqi, the son of al-ʿArif, who narrated from Ibn Makhlad al-ʿAttar; Saʿd ibn Muhammad al-Shaybani, who had heard from Abu ʿAli al-Hasaʾiri (1); ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad al-Suturi (2), who transmitted to him from Ismaʿil al-Saffar (3); Ibrahim ibn Makhlad ibn Jaʿfar al-Baqirhi (4); Abu al-Faraj Muhammad ibn Faris al-Ghuri (5); Abu al-Fadl ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Tamimi; Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Aban al-Hiti (6); and Muhammad ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿIsa al-Khatirani (7).