He travelled to Baghdad for the pilgrimage and there he narrated hadith.
Al-Samʿānī (1) said: “He was reliable, trustworthy, of upright conduct and commendable method, and he came from a family of hadith scholars.”
ʿAbd al-Ghāfir said: “Trustworthy and dependable; he possessed an audition copy of al-Ḥākim’s al-Iklīl and of the Mustadrak.”
He died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of the year 517 AH in Nīshāpūr, at the age of eighty-eight.
218 – Ibn Sukkara Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Firrah *
The imam, erudite scholar, ḥāfiẓ, and judge: Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Firrah ibn Ḥayyūn ibn Sukkara al-Ṣadafī, the Andalusian from Zaragoza.
He narrated from Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī and Muḥammad ibn Saʿdūn al-Qarawī. He performed the Hajj in 481 AH and visited Abū Isḥāq al-Ḥabbāl (2), while he was—
(1) Al-Tahbir, 1/359; it also reports that in 509 AH/1115 CE he issued to al-Samani an ijaza covering everything he had heard.
(*) Further biographical material may be consulted in: Ibn Bashkuwal, al-Silah, 1:144-146; Ibn Farhun, Bughyat al-Multamis, p. 269; Ibn al-Sa‘id, al-Ghunya, pp. 192-201; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, 4:214/1; idem, al-‘Ibar, 4:32-33; idem, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4:1253-1255; Ibn al-Jawzi, ‘Uyun al-Tawarikh, 13: fols. 389-390; Ibn Farhun, al-Dibaj al-Mudhahhab, 1:330-332; Ibn Hajar, Ghaya al-Nihaya, 1:250-251; al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-Huffaz, p. 455; al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, 3:51; idem, Nafh al-Tib, 2:90-93; Ibn al-‘Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 4:43; Ibn ‘Asakir, Tahdhib, 4:362; al-Sakhawi, Shajarat al-Nur al-Zakiyya, 1:128-129.
(2) Tarikh al-Islam adds: He performed the pilgrimage in the year 481 AH, entered Egypt, and visited Abu Ishaq al-Habbal, who had been banned from teaching hadith by the Fatimid Rafidi ruler. He recounts: “When I first spoke to him, he answered with something unrelated to my question, fearing I might have been planted to spy on him. After I reassured him that I was an Andalusian on my way to the Hajj, he granted me an oral ijaza but refused to give anything in writing.”