and Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad the ḥāfiẓ, together with many others.

In Nīshāpūr he studied under: Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Farāwī, Abū Muḥammad al-Sayyidī, Zāhir al-Shaḥḥāmī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn al-Qushayrī, Fāṭimah bint Zaʿbal, and a host of others.

In Marw he heard from: Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb al-Hamadhānī, the ascetic, and additional teachers.

In Herat he took knowledge from: Tamīm ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Muʾaddib and several others.

In Kūfah he heard from: ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm al-Zaydī al-Sharīf, as well as in Hamadhān, Tabrīz, and Mosul.

He compiled a collection entitled “Forty Geographical Ḥadiths” (Arbaʿīn Ḥadīthan Buldanīyah).

According to his Muʿjam, the number of his teachers comes to 1,300 shaykhs from whom he received direct audition, 46 (1) shaykhs who recited to him, and 290 shaykhs who granted him authorization; all of them are recorded in the Muʿjam. He also produced a small Muʿjam for eighty-odd women, which we have heard.

He taught in Baghdad, the Ḥijāz, Isfahān, and Nīshāpūr.

He authored numerous works.

He was perceptive, a master memorizer, precise, intelligent, and deeply versed in this discipline. No one could match his stature, no rival could stir the dust of his track, and he had no equal in his era.

Among those who transmitted from him are: Maʿmar ibn al-Fākhir; the ḥāfiẓ Abū ’l-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī; his son al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī; Imām Abū Jaʿfar al-Qurṭubī; the ḥāfiẓ Abū ’l-Mawāhib ibn Ṣaṣrā; his brother Abū ’l-Qāsim ibn Ṣaṣrā; the judge of Damascus Abū ’l-Qāsim ibn al-Harastānī; the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ruhāwī; and the mufti