Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥasan ibn Fuṭaymah al-Khusrūjirdī, a Shāfiʿī and the qāḍī of Bayhaq.

He was born in the 440s AH.

He heard the Book of al-Sunan wa-al-Āthār from al-Bayhaqī, and he also received transmission from Abū Saʿīd Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Khashshāb, Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Sūrī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Manṣūr al-Maghribī, Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-Ṣaffār (1), and others.

Among those who narrated from him were Ibn ʿAsākir (2), al-Samʿānī, and a group besides them.

Al-Samʿānī said: “He had many auditions, an excellent character, and was delightful in company; I never saw anyone with a lighter spirit than he (3), yet he was also generous and open-handed. I heard a great deal from him, and he copied out for me several parts. What is astonishing is that his fingers had been amputated in Kirmān because of an illness. Nevertheless, he would take the pen, place the paper beneath his foot, grip the pen with the palms of his hands, and write a beautiful, swift script—five quires in a single day, and in a broad hand. He studied jurisprudence in Marw under my grandfather Abū al-Muẓaffar, and he performed the pilgrimage. I once set out toward Isfahān, left the caravan, and continued on foot with a companion to Khusrūjird. We entered his house and greeted his attendants, but they took no notice of us. Then the shaykh emerged; we went up to meet him and he turned to us, asking, ‘Why have you come?’

“We said, ‘To read to you two fascicles from Maʿrifat al-Āthār by al-Bayhaqī.’

“He replied, ‘Perhaps you have already heard…’”