and Isfahan, he would have obtained a loftier chain of transmission. Instead, he remained there for three years, constantly attending the ḥāfiẓ Abū Dharr; he would travel with him to al-Sarāt, serve him, and thus narrated copiously from him (1), acquiring the sciences of hadith, jurisprudence, and kalām.

He then travelled to Damascus, where he heard from: Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ṭubayz, al-Ḥasan ibn al-Simsār, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumayʿ, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf al-Muzanī.

After that he journeyed to Baghdad and heard ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm al-Zuhrī, Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ghailān, Abū al-Qāsim al-Azharī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAlī al-Azajī, the ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ṣūrī—whom he accompanied for a time—Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Razmah, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Khallāl, and many others besides.

He studied jurisprudence under the Qadi Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī, the Qadi Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣaymarī, and Abū al-Faḍl ibn ʿAmrus (2) the Mālikī.

He next went to Mosul, where he spent a year with the theologian Qadi Abū Jaʿfar al-Sumnānī, a disciple of Ibn al-Bāqillānī; there he distinguished himself in hadith, fiqh, kalām, uṣūl, and adab.

After thirteen years he returned to al-Andalus with a vast store of knowledge, amassed despite poverty and contentment with little.

Among those who narrated from him were: Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū Muḥammad ibn Ḥazm, and Abū Bakr