and Vizier Niẓām al-Mulk treated him with deference and affection. Afterwards he sold his estates in Nīshāpūr and erected a large ribāṭ (Sufi hospice) in Baghdad. He enjoyed extraordinary prestige and manifest elegance. (1)
He died in 479 AH (2), and the office of shaykh passed to his son Abū al-Barakāt Ismāʿīl.
255 – al-Bāhir Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān al-Khuzāʿī *
The preacher Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad (3) ibn ʿUthmān ibn Aḥmad al-Khuzāʿī, al-Maṭīrī (4), known as “al-Bāhir.”
He served as the khatīb of Qaṣr ʿUrwah (5) and was a skillful poet.
He heard hadith in Sāmarrāʾ from ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Bazzāz and al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Faḥḥām; in Baghdad from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Bishrān; and in Kūfah from (6) Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Naḥwī al-Tamīmī.
Among those who transmitted from him were Abū al-ʿIzz ibn Kādesh and others. There is some critical comment regarding his narration from ʿAlī al-Raffāʾ.
He passed away in 479 AH at the age of ninety-four. (7)