He performed the pilgrimage, and while in Baghdad he studied under Abū al-Qāsim ibn Bayān during his mature years, for he himself had been born around 461 AH.
He transmitted hadith from Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad an-Nūḥī (1), al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Malik the judge, Mahdī ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAlawī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā an-Nasafī, Abū al-Yusr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad an-Nasafī, Ḥusayn al-Kāshghārī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad as-Samarqandī, and ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan al-Māturīdī.
Among those who narrated from him were Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm at-Turbushtī, his own son Abū al-Layth Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar, and a number of others.
Abū Saʿd as-Samʿānī (2) said: “He died in Samarkand on the twelfth of Jumādā al-Ūlā, 537 AH.”
- Kūkhān, King of the Khitāy (3)
The overbearing ruler of the Turks and the Khitāy, counted among the most formidable of monarchs.
It is reported that he advanced with three hundred thousand cavalry, routed the Seljuk sultan Sanjar, and seized Bukhara and Samarkand in 536 AH; but Allah did not grant him any respite,