Al-Samʿānī said: He was counted among the most distinguished of kings in learning, insight, statecraft, and firm resolve. He studied fiqh, copied out a complete Qur’an in his own fine hand, and mounted the pulpits of Bukhara and Samarkand to deliver the Friday sermon, where the audience marveled at his eloquence. He dictated hadith, transmitting from Ḥamd ibn Muḥammad al-Zubayrī and others. Gifted in carpentry as well, he fashioned with his own hands the door of the maqṣūra (the screened royal enclosure).

Among those who reported from him was the preacher Muḥammad ibn Naṣr.

He died in Dhu al-Qaʿdah, 492 AH.

114 – al-Sūdhurjānī, Abū al-Fatḥ Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad *

The shaykh, senior transmitter, trustworthy authority, and last of the elders: Abū al-Fatḥ Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad al-Sūdhurjānī al-Iṣfahānī, the brother of the truthful transmitter Abū Masʿūd Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah.

The two brothers studied together under ʿAlī ibn Mayla al-Faraḍī, Abū Saʿīd Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Naqqāsh, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdakūyah, and Abū Bakr ibn Abī ʿAlī al-Dhakwānī. They both lived to a great age and eventually became the sole survivors of their chains of transmission.

Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī learned from them both; they ranked among his senior teachers.

Those who narrated from this Abū al-Fatḥ include Ismāʿīl ibn Ghānim the merchant, Maḥmūd ibn Ḥamakā, Abū al-Fatḥ ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad al-Kharqī, and several others. He was a renowned and accomplished grammarian, and the ḥadith masters selected material from him.

He died in Ṣafar, 496 AH, at about ninety years of age.