al-Shāfiʿī, who said: “He is upright, trustworthy, and has attended many auditions.”
Abū ʿAlī passed away in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of the year 472 AH. Through his chain we read the compilation of Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar.
189 – al-Zanjānī, Abū al-Qāsim Saʿd ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad*
The imām, erudite scholar, ḥāfiẓ, exemplar, devotee, and Shaykh of the Sacred Precinct: Abū al-Qāsim Saʿd ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Zanjānī, the Ṣūfī.
He was born around 380 AH.
He studied under Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Naẓīf, al-Ḥusayn ibn Maymūn al-Ṣadafī, and several others in Egypt; under ʿAlī ibn Salāmah in Gaza; under Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿUbayd in Zanjān; under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yāsir al-Jawbarī; under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ṭubayz al-Ḥalabī; and under their peers in Damascus.
Those who transmitted from him include Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb—who was older than he—Abū al-Muẓaffar Manṣūr ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Samʿānī, Makkī al-Rumaylī, Hibat Allah ibn Fākhir, Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir the ḥāfiẓ, ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn al-Qushayrī, Mukhtār ibn ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī, and others.
Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī said: A shaykh told me, “Your grandfather, Abū al-Muẓaffar, had resolved to reside in the Haram in the company of the Imām Saʿd, when he saw his mother in a dream as though she had uncovered her head and was saying, ‘O—’”