He heard ḥadīth from: his father Abū al-Faḍl, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Mandah, his brother ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Burzah (1) the preacher, Ḥamd ibn Wulkeyz, Abū Isḥāq al-Ṭayyān, Ibn Mājah al-Abharī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Sussuwayh (2), Muḥammad ibn Badīʿ al-Ḥājib, Abū Manṣūr ibn Shakruwayh, Sulaymān ibn Ibrāhīm, and a number of others.

At the age of sixteen he set out for Baghdad, already fully alert to the scholarly enterprise. When he arrived, he discovered that Abū Naṣr al-Zaynabī had just died (3); he cried aloud in grief and deep regret. He therefore received ḥadīth from ʿĀṣim ibn al-Ḥasan, Mālik al-Bāniyāsī, Abū al-Ghanāʾim ibn Abī ʿUthmān, Rizq Allāh, and several more.

Mahmūd ibn Jaʿfar al-Kawsaj also narrated to him, on the authority of his grandfather al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Baghdādī—their family being devoted to the transmission of ḥadīth.

Those who transmitted from him include: Ibn Nāṣir, Ibn ʿAsākir, al-Samʿānī, Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī, Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn Ṭabarzad, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Qubbayṭī, and many scholars from Baghdad and Isfahān, the last of them being Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Badr al-Rārānī (4).

Al-Samʿānī said: “A trustworthy hadith master, devout and virtuous, of exemplary conduct, sound creed, upon the path of the righteous predecessors, free of affectation. He would go to the market wearing nothing on his head but a small skull-cap, and he used to fast while travelling the route to the Ḥijāz (5).”