He was born in 442 AH.
He possessed an exclusive ijāzah from Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿAlawī; no one else shared in it.
He heard ḥadith from Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Naqqūr, Ibn al-Busrī, Abū al-Faraj ibn ʿAllān, Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Manthūr al-Juhanī, and from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Anmāṭī.
He lived in al-Shām for a period, and he studied Arabic with Abū al-Qāsim Zayd ibn ʿAlī al-Fārisī.
Those who transmitted from him include al-Samʿānī, Ibn ʿAsākir ⦗1⦘, Abū Mūsā, and several others.
Yaʿīsh ibn Ṣadaqah recited the Qur’anic readings to him.
Al-Samʿānī said: “An elderly shaykh, well-versed in jurisprudence, ḥadith, language, exegesis, and grammar. He authored works on grammar. A poor man content with little, I heard him say: ‘I am Zaydī in creed, but I issue legal opinions according to the school of the ruling power.’ ⦗2⦘”
Al-ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir related, through a shaykh who narrated to him, that Abū al-Barakāt affirmed belief in qadar and in the createdness of the Qur’an. ⦗3⦘
He died in Shaʿbān, 539 AH.