ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAli ibn Ahmad was the maternal grandson of the ascetic, devout imam Abu Mansur al-Khayyat (1) and served as the imam of the Ibn Jarda Mosque. He was born in Shaʿban, 464 AH. He learned the Qur’an from Abu al-Hasan ibn al-Faʿus. Among those from whom he received hadith were Abu al-Husayn ibn al-Naqqur, Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ukbari, Rizq Allah al-Tamimi, Tirad al-Zaynabi, Nasr ibn al-Batr, and several others.
He studied the various Qur’anic readings under his grandfather Abu Mansur al-Khayyat, Abu al-Khattab ibn al-Jarrah, Thabit ibn Bundar, the noble sharif ʿAbd al-Qahir ibn ʿAbd al-Salam, Abu Tahir ibn Sawwar, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Wakil, the long-lived Yahya ibn Ahmad al-Saybi (2), owner of the Hammamiyyah, Ubayy al-Narsi, and Abu al-ʿIzz al-Qalansi.
He rose to prominence as a teacher of Qur’an recitation and authored several renowned works—among them al-Mubhij (3), al-Ijaz (4), and al-Kifayah (5). He led the prayer in the Ibn Jarda Mosque for a little over fifty years.