al-Qazwīnī(1), and after him he left none of equal stature. He was buried next to Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Samʿūn(2)—may Allah the Exalted have mercy on them both.

178 – Naṣr ibn al-Muẓaffar ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad al-Barmakī, son of Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Khālid ibn Barmak ibn Ādharwandār, the client and leading figure, known by the kunya Abū al-Maḥāsin al-Barmakī. He was first associated with Gurgān and later with Hamadhān, bore the honorific “al-Shakhs al-ʿAzīz,” and was the brother of Abū al-Futūḥ al-Fatḥ.

Birth: Baghdad, sometime after 450 AH. He told al-Samʿānī, “In the Year of the Flood, 466 AH, I had already reached maturity.” He later settled permanently in Hamadhān.

He heard hadith from Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Naqqūr, from Ismāʿīl ibn Masʿadah in Baghdad, from Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Mandah, from Abū ʿĪsā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ziyād, and from Sulaymān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāfiẓ in Isfahān.

He alone transmitted most of what he had heard, lived to an advanced age, and students travelled to him from afar.

Al-Samʿānī said: “He is an elderly shaykh. He used to lead a group of Turks in prayer and was nicknamed ‘Shakhs.’ I read to him the Book of Seeking Permission (al-Istiʾdhān) by Ibn al-Mubārak.”

Ibn al-Najjār said: “He journeyed extensively, entering Khurasan, Bukhara, Samarqand, Kashghar, Sind, and Damascus.”