He studied the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī with Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Manẓūr, a disciple of Abū Dharr al-Harawī, and he himself later transmitted it.
Those who narrated from him include Abū al-Qāsim al-Qanṭarī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Azdī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khalīl al-Qaysī, and others.
Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Abbār said: “He was well-versed in the Qurʾānic readings and in ḥadīth, exact in the sciences of kalām and Sufism, while living an ascetic life and striving in worship. Among his beneficial writings are a Qurʾān commentary (1) that he did not complete and a book entitled Explanation of the Most Beautiful Names of Allah (2); both works were transmitted from him by al-Qanṭarī.
He died, far from his homeland, in Marrakesh in 536 AH (3); his grave faces that of the great ascetic Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn al-ʿĀrif (4).”
I say: “These two were arrested, exiled westward, and imprisoned because Ibn Tashfīn (5) suspected that they might rise in revolt.”
(1) Ibn Khallikan remarks that most of his discourse follows the style of the masters of spiritual states and stations. Hajji Khalifa adds: “From his cryptic allusions people deduced certain events and announced them before they occurred.” One example concerns Ibn al-Zakki, who praised Sultan Saladin after the capture of Aleppo with the couplet: “Your seizure of the Fair-White Citadel in Safar / heralds the conquest of Jerusalem in Rajab.” Events unfolded exactly so. Asked how he knew this, Ibn al-Zakki replied: “I took it from Ibn Barrijan’s commentary on the Qurʾanic verse, ghulibat al-rum … wa-hum min baʿdi ghalabihim sayaghlibun fī biḍʿi sinīn (‘The Byzantines have been defeated … yet after their defeat they will be victorious within a few years’).” See: Ibn Hajar, Lisan al-Mizan, 4:14; al-Dawudi, Tabaqat, 1:300; Taşköprüzade, Miftah al-Saʿada, 2:112.
(2) Hajji Khalifa describes the work as a large book in which the author gathered more than 130 well-known, transmitted names of God. Each name is treated in three sections: first, how the name is derived; second, the path to drawing near through it; third, an indication of worship based on its inner reality.
(3) The year of his death is corrupted in Miftah al-Saʿada to 727 H, and in Kashf al-Zunun, 1:70, to 627 H.
(4) His biography will appear under no. 68.
(5) The reference is to ʿAli b. Yusuf b. Tashfin; his biography will appear under no. 75.