He began attending audition-sessions in the year 424 AH, and in the years that followed he heard from: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Miṣʿab al-Tājir; the ḥadith master Abū Nuʿaym—indeed, he seems to have received from him a camel-load of material; Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Fādshāh; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Razzāq ibn Abī Shaykh; Hārūn ibn Muḥammad al-Kātib; Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār; Abū Saʿd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Ṣaffār; ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Mihrān al-Ṣaḥḥāf; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Bazdah al-Milanjī; Abū Bakr ibn Rīdhah (1); al-Faḍl ibn Muḥammad al-Qāshānī; Abū Aḥmad Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Sayyūyah, the blind scholar; Abū Dharr Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāliḥānī; and many others.

He compiled for his own use a Muʿjam (an index of his shaykhs) which we have heard, though it may in fact have been arranged by his accomplished son, the ḥadith master ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Ḥaddād.

In Qurʾānic variant readings he recited to: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār; Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī, the ascetic; Aḥmad ibn al-Faḍl al-Bāṭirqānī; and Aḥmad ibn Bazdah. He then assumed the teaching chair and benefited others.

Among those who recited the readings to him were Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī and a number of others.

Those who transmitted ḥadith from him include: al-Salafī; Maʿmar ibn al-Fākher; Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār; Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī; Abū Masʿūd ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Ḥājjī; Abū al-Fath ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Khirqī; Abū al-Faḍl al-Ṭūsī, the preacher of Mosul; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Ṣāʾigh; Yaḥyā ibn Maḥmūd al-Thaqafī; al-Faḍl ibn al-Qāsim al-Ṣaydalanī; Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan al-Faḍl al-Ādimī; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad