spreading knowledge and acquiring books that hardly any scholar anywhere in the world had ever managed to assemble.
An exceptionally large number of people travelled to him—especially after the rule of the Rafidah (1) in Egypt was overthrown and the Syrian army took control of the province. Sultan Salah al-Din, together with his brothers and amirs, journeyed to him and heard hadith from him.
Those who narrated from him include: the hadith master Muhammad ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi, the traditionist Saʿd al-Khayr (2)—both of whom had been among his own teachers—Abu al-ʿIzz Muhammad ibn ʿAli al-Mulqabadhi, ʿAli ibn Ibrahim al-Saraqusti, and Tayyib ibn Muhammad al-Marwazi. Abu Saʿd al-Samʿani transmitted from these last three on al-Silafi’s authority.
Others who reported from him were Yahya ibn Saʿdun al-Qurtubi and al-Saʾin Hibat Allah ibn ʿAsakir; from these two, the hadith masters Ibn al-Samʿani and Abu al-Qasim ibn ʿAsakir conveyed his material.
By ijazah many people—who in fact died before him—also narrated from him, among them the jurist-judge Qadi Iyad ibn Musa.
Among the leading scholars who transmitted from him were ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Majid al-Mayanashi, Hammad al-Harrani, and the two hadith masters ʿAbd al-Ghani (3) and ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Ruhawi, as well as ʿAli ibn