Ibn al-Samarqandī once asked him about his date of birth, and he replied, “In Rajab of the year 409 AH.”

He studied the Qur’an-recitation under al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣaqr the scribe, Ibn Bukayr al-Najjār, Aḥmad ibn Masrūr, and Musāfir ibn ʿAbbād.

He heard hadith from Abū al-Qāsim Ibn Bishrān, Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Bukayr, and a number of others.

He composed a well-known poem on the canonical readings which he entitled al-Musʿidah (1). He also led the prayer for the Caliph al-Muqtadī and for his father al-Mustazhir. He was a Shāfiʿī—reliable, truthful, and learned.

Multitudes recited to him and many completed their khatma under his supervision. Among those who read to him were Sibt al-Khayyāṭ Abū Muḥammad, Abū al-Karam al-Shahrazūrī, Saʿd Allāh ibn al-Dajjājī, and Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī.

Those who transmitted from him include these men, as well as ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Anmāṭī, Ibn Nāṣir, ʿUmar al-Maghāzilī, the preacher of Mosul Abū al-Faḍl, Asʿad ibn Baldarak, and others.

Al-Silafī said: “I asked the ḥāfiẓ Shujāʿ about him, and he replied, ‘He is one of the careful, precise preservers among the Qur’an-readers, a man of virtue and refined manners, and he possesses edited collections of fine poetry.’”

Al-Silafī also wrote in his Muʿjam: “He is an imam in the Arabic language; his poetry occupies the highest rank, and his handwriting is among the most beautiful. I recited to him according to the reading of Abū ʿAmr—the very reading he had taken from Ibn al-Ṣaqr—and one could speak at length about his merits.” (2)

Shujāʿ reported that he passed away on the twentieth of Dhu al-Ḥijjah, 497 AH.