—an Azdī by lineage, a Cordoban by origin, a Qur’an-reciter and a grammarian.
He was born in 486 AH and was surnamed Ṣāʾin al-Dīn.
He studied the Qur’anic readings with Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-Nakhkhās in Cordoba and with Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Faḥḥām in Alexandria.
Among those from whom he heard hadith were Abū Muḥammad ibn ʿAṭṭāb, Muḥammad ibn Barakāt al-Saʿīdī, Abū Ṣādiq Murshid al-Madani, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Ḍarīr—the reciter of al-Mahdiyya—Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī, author of al-Sudāsiyyāt (The Hexads), and the traditionist Razīn ibn Muʿāwiya.
His journeys took him as far as Khwarazm, where he studied under al-Zamakhsharī.
In Baghdad he heard from Ibn al-Ḥuṣayn and Abū al-ʿIzz ibn Kādish, and in Damascus from Jamāl al-Islām al-Sulamī.

He was trustworthy, exact, a master of Arabic, thoroughly versed in the subtleties of the variant readings, devout, virtuous, ascetic, and highly respected; eminent imams graduated under him.
Those who recited to him included al-Fakhr Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faraj al-Mawṣilī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Bawāzījī (1), the judge Bahāʾ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Shaddād, and Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn