He heard from Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhalliṣ, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Zunbūr, Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥammāmī, and others. He was the last person alive to transmit from al-Mukhalliṣ and Ibn Zunbūr.

Those who reported from him include al-Ḥumaydī, Ibn al-Khāḍibah, al-Bardānī, Ibn Ṭāhir, Muʾtaman al-Sājī, Abū Naṣr al-Ghāzī, Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī, Ismāʿīl al-Samarqandī, ʿAlī ibn Ṭirād and his brother Muḥammad, Wajīh al-Shahhāmī, Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-Shahrazūrī al-Mawṣilī, the judge of Sinjār Muẓaffar ibn Abī Aḥmad, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muʾayyad Billāh, Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Urmawī, Abū Bakr ibn al-Zāghūnī, Abū Muḥammad al-Mādiḥ, and many others. The last of his pupils to die was Hibat Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Shiblī; after him, Abū al-Fatḥ ibn al-Baṭṭī continued to relate from him by ijāza.

Al-Samʿānī remarks: “Abū Naṣr was a noble Hāshimite, an ascetic of upright religion and devoted worship. He renounced the world while still young, inclined toward Sufism, and lived in seclusion in the ribāṭ of the Shaykh of the Shaykhs, Abū Saʿd. The isnād of al-Baghawī terminated with him, and students travelled to study under him.

“I heard Abū al-Faḍl ibn al-Muhtadī Billāh say: Whenever a faulty reading was recited in his presence, Abū Naṣr al-Zaynabī would correct it, so accustomed was he to the countless portions that had been read before him.

“I also heard the ḥāfiẓ Ismāʿīl in Isfahān relate that Abū Saʿd al-Baghdādī set out to see Abū Naṣr al-Zaynabī. He entered Baghdad but did not manage to reach him; when he learned of his death he tore his garment, struck himself, and kept saying, ‘How am I ever to obtain the chain of ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd from Shuʿbah now?’ I asked Ismāʿīl about al-Zaynabī and he replied, ‘An ascetic with sound audition, the last man to narrate from al-Mukhalliṣ.’”

Al-Samʿānī and others state that he died on the twenty-first of Jumādā al-Ākhirah.