He heard hadith from his own father, from Abū Ṭālib ibn Ghaylān, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Shāhīn, Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAtīqī, Abū Isḥāq al-Barmakī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Tanūkhī, and a number of others.

He was trustworthy, prolific, and long-lived.

Those who narrated from him include: al-Silafī, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār, Ibn Nāṣir, Dahbal ibn Kārah, his brother Lāḥiq, Aḥmad ibn Mawhūb ibn al-Sadank, his brother Yaḥyā, Dhākir ibn Kāmil, al-Mubārak ibn al-Maʿṭūsh, and many others. He was the last person to transmit from Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Sawwāq, and he alone possessed a written authorisation (ijāza) from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Rizmah.

Born in 432 AH.

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Anmāṭī said, “He was a trustworthy, righteous man.”

Ibn al-Najjār said, “A dependable and noble scholar, one of the refined Baghdadis.”

Al-Anmāṭī relates: “I once visited him, and he said, ‘Today two envoys from the messengers of the Angel of Death came to me.’ I smiled and asked, ‘How so?’ He replied, ‘A group of people arrived, so I made them witnesses to a testimony I hold, and the hadith scholars came to hear from me so that they might transmit (1) from me.’

“He then said, ‘I had gone to see Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Muhtadī billāh, and the same thing happened to him; he said those very words to me.’

“Al-Anmāṭī further stated: He died on the night of Saturday, the sixteenth of Shawwāl in the year 515 AH.

“He was the last surviving witness to the proclamation of the caliph al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allāh.”