- The Preacher of Mosul, ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi*
The shaykh, imam, scholar, jurist, hadith expert, and leading transmitter of his day, the preacher of Mosul: Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Qāhir ibn Hishām al-Tusi, then al-Baghdādī, later al-Mawṣilī, a Shafiʿi.
He was born in Ṣafar, 487 AH.
His father supervised his training, so he personally heard hadith from Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṭalḥah al-Niʿālī and Ṭirād (1) al-Zaynabī. He also received narrations from Nasr ibn al-Baṭr, Abū Bakr al-Ṭuraythīthī, Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Yūsufī, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Anṣārī, Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Ayyūb, Jaʿfar al-Sarrāj, Manṣūr ibn Ḥīd (2), al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Busrī, Abū Ghālib al-Bāqillānī, and Abū Manṣūr al-Khayyāṭ.
In Isfahan he studied with Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād; in Nishapur with Abū Naṣr ibn al-Qushayrī; in Tirmidh with Maymūn ibn Maḥmūd; and in Mosul with his father and his uncle. He held the Friday pulpit there for a time, travellers sought him out, and he was, in himself, trustworthy.
Whenever Abū Bakr al-Ḥāzimī transmitted from him, he would say, “He informed us from his own autograph.” (3)