Then he journeyed to Greater Syria, settling in Jerusalem for a time. I was told that in Ṣūr (Tyre) he heard a single hadith directly from al-Khaṭīb’s own lips, although he did not possess a written copy of it. In Baghdad he copied al-Kāmil of Ibn ʿAdī from Ibn Masʿada al-Ismāʿīlī, and in Basra he transcribed Sunan Abī Dāwūd.

I benefited from his company.

Abū al-Naḍr al-Fāmī (1) said: “Al-Muʾtaman resided in Herat for ten years; he read extensively and copied Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī six times. He had a certain proud bearing, yet he was content, chaste, and wholly occupied with matters that concerned him.”

Abū Bakr al-Samʿānī remarked, “In all of Iraq I saw no one who truly understood hadith except al-Muʾtaman; in Isfahan that distinction belonged to Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad.”

Al-Silafī said: “One never tired of his recitation. He read to us, in a single sitting before Ibn al-Ṭuyūrī, the book al-Fāṣil (2) of al-Rāmahurmuzī.”

Al-Silafī also composed the following lines:

If ever you yearn to meet a ḥāfiẓ supreme—
Among all men the trusted, the one they acclaim—
Make for Baghdad, its eastern side,
And there you will find Abū Naṣr, al-Muʾtaman.

Yahyā ibn Mandah said: “Al-Muʾtaman read to my father the book Maʿrifat al-Ṣaḥābah, the book al-Tawḥīd, the Amālī, and the collected narrations of Ibn ʿUyaynah.”