Nor am I aware that he ever performed Hajj.
Those who transmitted from him include: Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Asʿad al-ʿAṭṭārī, known as Ḥafada; Abū al-Futūḥ Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭāʾī; and a number of others.
The last person to receive his written authorization was Abū al-Makārim Faḍl Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Nawqānī, who lived until 600 AH and in turn granted authorization to our teacher Fakhr ibn ʿAlī al-Bukhārī (1).
Al-Baghawī was titled “the Reviver of the Sunnah” and “the Pillar of the Religion.” He was a noble master and imām, a scholar of great erudition, ascetic and content with little. He used to eat bread on its own; when reproached for that he began to dip it in oil. His father made and sold furs.
His writings were blessed with complete acceptance, thanks to the sincerity of his purpose and the purity of his intention, and scholars strove to acquire them. He never delivered a lesson unless he was in a state of ritual purity. Moderate in his dress, he owned a single coarse robe and a small turban, following the way of the early generations in both conduct and appearance. He had a firm footing in Qurʾanic exegesis and a far-reaching mastery of jurisprudence (2). May Allah have mercy on him.
(1) ʿAli ibn Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn Ahmad, the devout imam, ḥadith authority of his time, Fakhr al-Din Abuʾl-Hasan al-Maqdisi al-Salihani, a Hanbali. The author gives his biography in his Mashayikhah, fol. 94, and records his death in 690 AH.
(2) Al-Baghawi, may Allah have mercy on him, was raised as a Shafiʿi, owing to the milieu in which he lived and the scholars from whom he studied. His contribution to the Shafiʿi school is evident in his book al-Tahdhib, where he adopts the method of weighing, selecting, and authenticating opinions. Yet he never displayed partisanship toward his own imam nor disparaged others. Rather, he examined all the schools and the views of their imams, reviewed their proofs, and in each chapter generally adopted what he considered the strongest evidence and the soundest counsel. Once his learning was well established and his thought matured, he actively called people to hold fast to the Quran and the Sunnah—the twin foundations and ultimate reference for all legal questions—and he composed useful, enjoyable works to disseminate their sciences and revive their legacy, thereby rightfully earning the title “Muhyi al-Sunnah” (Reviver of the Sunnah) from his contemporaries and those who came after him.