He was born in 477 AH.
He studied the recitation of Ismaʿil ibn ʿAbd al-Ghafir al-Farisi, receiving it by audition from Abu Bakr ibn Khalaf the man of letters, Abu al-Muzaffar Musa ibn ʿImran, Abu Turab ʿAbd al-Baqi al-Maraghi (1), Abu al-Qasim ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi, Abu al-Hasan ibn al-Akhram, and a number of others.
Those who narrated from him include his son, Abu Saʿd ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Saffar; his grandson, al-Qasim ibn Abu Saʿd; al-Muʾayyad al-Tusi; Mansur ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim; Yahya ibn al-Rabiʿ al-Wasiti the jurist; Sulayman ibn Muhammad al-Mawsili; his brother ʿAli; Zaynab al-Shaʿriyya; and Abu al-Fadl Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karim al-Rafiʿi, the father of the author of the commentary, who bore the honorific ʿIsam al-Din.
His grandson al-Qasim said: “My grandfather was the peer of Muhammad ibn Yahya the jurist (2), yet he excelled him in knowledge of the Two Fundamentals.”
Abu Saʿd al-Samʿani remarked: “He is a distinguished, foremost imam, encompassing every kind of excellence in the sciences. His conduct was upright, and he narrated hadith in great abundance.”
ʿAbd al-Ghafir, in his Chronicle, wrote: “A virtuous, devout, God-fearing youth—one of the notable jurists.”
Al-Samʿani further stated: “He died on the Day of Sacrifice in 553 AH.”