He studied under Abū Muḥammad al-Juwaynī the jurist, Abū Ḥafṣ ibn Masrūr, ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Muḥammad al-Fārisī, Abū ʿUthmān al-Ṣābūnī, Abū Saʿd the physician, and Wajīh ibn Abī al-Ṭayyib.
Narrators who transmitted from him include: Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī, his grandson Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Masjidī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn al-Furāwī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Qāsim al-Shaʿrī, Abū Saʿd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar al-Ṣaffār, Ibn Yāsir al-Jayyānī, and others.
He was called “al-Masjidī” because he served in the Muṭarraz Mosque (1). A devout and upright man, he possessed elevated chains of narration. His father was known for reciting one-seventh of the Quran every day, and his son Aḥmad ibn Sahl narrated from Yaʿqūb ibn Aḥmad al-Ṣayrafī.
Sahl passed away in the year five hundred and twenty-something AH. I have mentioned him briefly in my History of Islam under the year twenty-two.
305 – Sultan Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn Malikshāh the Seljuk *
The lord of Iraq, Mughīth al-Dīn Maḥmūd, son of Sultan Muḥammad ibn Malikshāh ibn Alp Arslān the Seljuk.