Both brothers heard from: Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb, ʿAbd al-Dāʾim ibn al-Ḥasan, Abū Naṣr ibn Ṭalāb, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Kattānī.
Their father then moved them to Baghdad, where they attended the lessons of Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Muslima; Abū Muḥammad ibn Hazār Mard; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAlī al-Sukkarī; Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Naqqūr; Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Munṭāb; Mālik al-Bāniyāsī; Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Qawwās; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Qaṭṭān; ʿĀṣim ibn al-Ḥasan; Ibn al-Akhḍar al-Anbārī; Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Ḥakkāk; Muḥammad ibn Hibat Allāh al-Lālkāʾī; Ibn Khayrūn; Rizq Allāh al-Tamīmī; Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī ʿUthmān; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ṣaqr; Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥasan al-Tafakkurī; Ismāʿīl ibn Masʿada; Ṭirād al-Zaynabī; al-Niʿālī (1); ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Rizma; Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Bannāʾ; Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-ʿAṭṭār; ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-Khallāl; Yūsuf ibn al-Mihravānī; ʿAbd al-Sayyid ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣabbāgh; Abū Naṣr al-Zaynabī and his father; Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī; ʿAbd al-Bāqī ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār; Ibn al-Busrī; and many others.
Ismāʿīl later travelled to Syria and, in Jerusalem, studied under Makkī al-Rumaylī (2). He lived to an advanced age and transmitted a large body of material.
Among those who reported from him are: al-Silafī, Ibn ʿAsākir (3), al-Samʿānī, Aʿazz ibn ʿAlī al-Ẓahīrī, Ismāʿīl ibn Aḥmad the scribe, Saʿīd ibn ʿAṭṭāf, and Yaḥyā ibn