He was born in the year 458 AH.
In 465 AH, in the town of Bushanj, he received from Jamāl al-Islām Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Dāwūdī the transmission of the Sahih, the Sunan of al-Dārimī, and the Selected Sections of the Musnad of ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd.
He likewise heard from Abū ʿĀṣim al-Fuḍayl ibn Yaḥyā, Muḥammad ibn Abī Masʿūd al-Fārisī, Abū Yaʿlā Saʿid ibn Hibat Allāh, Bībā bint ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAfīf; they all related to him the narrations of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Shurayḥ.
Among his other teachers were Aḥmad ibn Abī Naṣr Kākū; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad al-Thaqafī; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-ʿĀṣimī; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Faḍlawī; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī ʿĀṣim al-Jawharī; Shaykh al-Islām Abū Ismāʿīl al-Anṣārī—of whose disciples he was—Abū ʿĀmir Maḥmūd ibn al-Qāsim al-Azdī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Baghāwardānī; Ḥakīm ibn Aḥmad al-Isfarāyinī; Abū ʿAdnān al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī al-Qurashī; Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar al-Kalludhānī; Naṣr ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥanafī; and a number of others.
He taught hadith in Khurāsān, Isfahān, Kirmān, Hamadhān, and Baghdad. Students gathered around him in great numbers; his narrations became celebrated, his fame spread far and wide, and he came to be acknowledged as the possessor of the loftiest surviving chains of transmission.
Those who narrated from him include Ibn ʿAsākir ⦗1⦘, al-Samʿānī, Ibn al-Jawzī, Yūsuf ibn Aḥmad al-Shīrāzī—who travelled to Kirmān for his sake—Sufyān ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Manda, Abū Dharr Suhayl ibn Muḥammad al-Būshanjī, Abū al-Ḍawʾ Shihāb al-Shadhabānī, ʿAbd al-Muʿizz ibn Muḥammad al-Harawī, the judge ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Bundār al-Hamadhānī, ʿAbd al-Jalīl ibn Mandawayh, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sulamī the perfumer, and ʿUthmān ibn ʿAlī