186 – Ibn al-Zāghūnī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Naṣr*

The shaykh, senior musnid, and reliable transmitter: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Naṣr ibn al-Sarī al-Baghdādī, better known as Ibn al-Zāghūnī the Bookbinder.

His brother, the Imam Abū al-Ḥasan (1), arranged for him to hear hadith from Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn al-Busrī, Abū Naṣr al-Zaynabī, ʿĀṣim ibn al-Ḥasan, Rizq Allāh, Mālik al-Bāniyāsī, Ṭirād al-Naqīb, Abū al-Faḍl ibn Khayrūn, and several others.

He lived a long life; his chains of transmission grew lofty, and he transmitted unique narrations.

Those who reported from him include Ibn ʿAsākir (2), al-Samʿānī, Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn Ṭabarzad, al-Kindī, Ibn Milāʿib, Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Maʿālī ibn al-Bannāʾ, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Yūsuf al-ʿAbartī, Maḥāsin al-Khazāʾinī, Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Jawāliqī, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Dāhirī, Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Qaṭīʿī, and others.

The last of his pupils to receive an ijāza from him was Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Muqayyar.

Al-Samʿānī says: “A righteous, devout shaykh, of commendable conduct. I read several fascicles to him, and he kept a shop where he practiced bookbinding.”

I say: He was unsurpassed in the beauty of his bindings; al-Muqtafī li-Amr Allāh appointed him to bind the volumes of the royal library.