He heard hadith from his grandfather, Abū al-Ḥasan, and from his own mother, Shukr bint Sahl ibn Bishr al-Isfarāyīnī.

From Isfahān he was granted an ijāzah (license to transmit) by Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād.

He later travelled and received narrations from Abū Bakr ibn al-Zāghūnī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ruṭabī, Abū al-Karam al-Shahrazūrī, Saʿīd ibn al-Bannāʾ, and others.

He produced and collated works, settled on the lower slopes of Mount Qāsiyūn, and established a small zāwiyah (spiritual lodge). He devoted himself to his own affairs, preferred seclusion, and showed kindness to the poor. For his personal use he compiled a fine mashyakhah (register of shaykhs) that included Abū al-Faḍl al-Urmawī, Ibn al-Ṭalāyah, and several others.

Those who narrated from him include the ḥadith master al-Ḍiyāʾ, Ibn Khalīl, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq ibn Khalaf, al-Bahāʾ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, the Khaṭīb of Mardā, al-ʿImād Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿImād ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Naḥḥās, al-Zayn Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim, and many others.

Al-Ḍiyāʾ remarked, “He was devout and upright; age had bent his back, and we heard from him most of the Hilyah.”

He died in Muḥarram, 585 AH.