and in Baghdad, Abū Bakr ibn Khalaf al-Shīrāzī; Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Sahl al-Sarrāj; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī; together with their peers in Nishapur. His earliest audition was from Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Ṭihrānī—one of Ibn Manda’s companions—in the year 467 AH, when he was ten years old.

He also received ḥadith in Mecca, where he stayed for a full year. During that time he dictated transmissions, authored works, and practiced al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl (discrediting and accrediting narrators). He was likewise counted among the leading authorities in Arabic philology, and—like other ḥadith masters—some fabricated reports slipped into his compilations.

Those who narrated from him include: Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī; Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Hamadhānī; Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī; Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir (1); Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī; Abū Saʿd al-Ṣāʾigh; Yaḥyā ibn Maḥmūd al-Thaqafī—his grandson; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamd (2) al-Khabbāz; Abū al-Faḍāʾil Maḥmūd ibn Aḥmad al-ʿAbdkawī; Abū Najīḥ Faḍl Allāh ibn ʿUthmān; al-Muʾayyad ibn al-Ikhwah; Abū al-Majd Zāhir ibn Aḥmad al-Thaqafī; and many others besides them.

Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī said: “Abū al-Qāsim Ismāʿīl the ḥadith master was the imām of the imāms of his time, the teacher of the scholars of his age, and the exemplar of Ahl al-Sunnah in his day. A number of people narrated from him while he was still alive. He lost the ability to speak in Ṣafar 534 AH, then suffered paralysis some time later, and he died on the Day of Sacrifice in 535 AH. A gathering the like of which I have never seen, in sheer number, assembled for his funeral.

“His father, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad, was a righteous and scrupulous man; he heard ḥadith from Saʿīd al-ʿAyyār, recited the Qur’an to Abū al-Muẓaffar ibn Shabīb, and passed away in 491 AH …” He then said: “His mother (3) was from the descendants of Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd—"