the Damascene whose integrity was attested, better known as Ibn al-Akfāni.

He was born in 444 AH.

He began listening to hadith at the age of nine, and thereafter studied under his father, Abū al-Qāsim al-Hinnāʾī, Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Makkī, ʿAbd al-Dāʾim ibn al-Ḥasan al-Hilālī, Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Kattānī—whose company he kept for some time—Abū Naṣr ibn Ṭalab, Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, Ṭāhir ibn Aḥmad al-Qāʾinī, ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Burza the preacher, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Abī al-ʿAlāʾ, and many others. His father had earlier studied with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ṭubayz.

Those who transmitted from him include Ghayth al-Armanāzī, Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī, Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī, Ibn ʿAsākir, his brother al-Ṣāʾin, ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Najjār, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī al-Janzawī (1), Abū Ṭāhir al-Khushūʿī, and others.

Ibn ʿAsākir said, “I heard a great deal from him. He was reliable, firmly grounded, alert, and devoted to hadith and its collection, though he was hard to persuade to narrate. He studied jurisprudence for a time under the judge al-Marwazī, examined endowment deeds, and certified witnesses.”

Al-Silafī remarked, “He was a prolific ḥāfiẓ, trustworthy; he was the historian of Syria and authored many works.”