al-Nuʿmānī, their client; the Egyptian, the bookseller, the stationer, the rope-maker, the furrier.
He was a descendant of ʿAbīd al-Qāḍī ibn al-Nuʿmān al-Maghribī, the ʿUbaydī, the Rāfiḍī.
Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī said: He was born in 391 AH, and in 407 AH he heard ḥadith from the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn Saʿīd; he was the last person to receive narration from him.
I (the author) add: He also heard from Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Tharthāl (1), the associate of al-Maḥāmilī—and he was his senior-most shaykh—as well as from Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Naḥḥās; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Shākir al-Qaṭṭān; Muḥammad ibn Dhakwān al-Tinnīsī, the grandson of ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad al-Samarkandī; Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Jaʿfar al-ʿAṭṭār; Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥājj al-Ishbīlī; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Naysābūrī, the associate of al-Aṣamm; Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn Naẓīf; and many others besides them.
He never travelled in search of knowledge.
He compiled for himself a collection of elevated chains going back to Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, and he used to trade in books and appraise them.
Among his teachers were Munīr ibn Aḥmad al-Khashshāb, al-Khaṣīb (2) ibn ʿAbd Allāh, and Abū Saʿd al-Mālīnī.
He amassed from principal manuscripts and small fascicles a quantity beyond description.
Those who narrated from him include Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan al-ʿAlawī—the naqīb—ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Sawwār al-Takkī, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Hibat Allāh al-Ikhmīmī, Wafāʾ ibn Dhubyān al-Nābulusī, Yūsuf ibn Muḥammad al-Ardabīlī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad