He authored works and gathered material, enjoying exalted standing, perfect nobility and abundant wealth. He combined keen intellect, sound judgment and ample learning with vast divine favor.

Among those who narrated from him were: his teacher Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad al-Mustaghfiri; Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb; the ascetic Yūsuf b. Ayyūb al-Hamadhānī; Zāhir b. Ṭāhir al-Shaḥḥāmī; Hibat Allāh b. Sahl al-Sayyidī; Abū al-Asʿad Hibat al-Raḥmān b. al-Qushayrī; Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥīrī; and Abū al-Fatḥ Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Adīb—though the latter only by written licence. The last of his pupils to remain alive was al-Khaṭīb Abū al-Maʿālī al-Madīnī.

Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī said: “He was the foremost Alid of his time, possessed perfect expertise in hadith, and relied on abundant intellect and sound opinion. Together with Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb he excelled in the study of hadith. Al-Khaṭīb quoted him—-I think in the book Al-Bukhalaʾ. He was gifted with an elegant style of composition. In the latter part of his life he settled in Samarqand, then came to Baghdad where he held dictation sessions, narrated in Isfahan, and thereafter returned to Samarqand (1).”

I heard Yūsuf b. Ayyūb the ascetic say, “I have never seen an Alid better than him.” He praised him highly. The man was numbered among the notable wealthy, yet he was extremely generous: each year he would send to a group of leading scholars one thousand dinars, five hundred, or even more to every single one, so that the total sometimes reached ten thousand dinars. He would say, “This is the zakah of my wealth, and I am a stranger. Distribute it among those whom you know to be deserving, and for everyone you give to, write a note and send it to me so that I may grant him a tenth of the revenue.”

It is said that he owned nearly forty villages that were his exclusive property in the district of Kis (2), and in every village he employed an agent more distinguished than the chief of Samarqand itself (3).