Muharram; I received instruction from Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Bishrān, and my father preached for seventy years.’
I add: he also heard from Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥammāmī and ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Bishrān. His conduct was commendable and he was truthful, but the written record of his audition with Abū al-Ḥusayn has been lost.
Those who transmitted from him include his son Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Sinjī; Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī; Abū al-Faḍl al-Ṭūsī; Abū Bakr ibn al-Naqqūr; ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Yūsufī; Qays ibn Muḥammad al-Sawīqī; Abū Ṭālib ibn Khudayr; al-Mubārak ibn ʿAlī al-Khayyāṭ; Yaḥyā ibn Thābit al-Baqqāl; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Manṣūr al-Mawṣilī; Wajīh ibn Hibbat Allāh al-Saqqatī; Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-ʿAlawī, the naqīb; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Narsi; Khamratāsh, client of Ibn al-Muslima; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥamṭays al-Sarrāj; Abū al-Saʿādāt Naṣr Allāh al-Qazzāz; and many others besides them.
He died on the twenty-third of Muharram in 505 AH, having completed ninety-nine years.
During that same year also passed away: the hadith scholar Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ābanūsī (1); the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ḥaydara ibn Mafawwaz al-Shāṭibī (2); the leading jurist of Ceuta, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Tamīmī (3); the Proof of Islam Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (4); and Abū Saʿd Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Tānī Sarfotaj, one of the pupils of Abū Nuʿaym (5).