Abī al-Qāsim Najāḥ, client of the Andalusian ruler al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam—an Umayyad, Andalusian, and Cordovan by origin, later residing in Dāniyya and Balansiyya (1).
He was born in 413 AH. He kept the company of Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī, narrated from him abundantly, and completed his training under him; indeed, he was the most distinguished and most reliable of his disciples. He also studied with Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Ibn Dilhāth, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿdūn, Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī, Abū Shākir al-Khaṭīb, and several others.
Among those who recited the Qurʾān to him were: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Ghulām al-Faras; Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī; Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿĀṣim al-Thaqafī; Aḥmad ibn Suḥnūn al-Mursī; Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad al-Bakrī; Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Nawālshī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Faraj al-Zuhayrī; Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Hudhayl; Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn Yaḥyā al-Qurṭubī, and many others.
Ibn Bashkuwāl said: “He was one of the foremost and finest Qurʾān reciters, deeply knowledgeable of the variant transmissions and their routes, precise in memorization, trustworthy, and devout. He authored works on the meanings of the Qurʾān, and his calligraphy was elegant. A number of our shaykhs informed us about him and described him as a man of virtue, learning, and religion.”
He died in Ramaḍān of the year 496 AH, and the people crowded around his bier (2).
I have read, in the handwriting of one of Abū Dāwūd’s students, a list of his writings, among them: al-Bayān fī ʿUlūm