He heard ḥadith from his grandfather, from the jurist Naṣr Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Maṣṣīṣī—his senior-most teacher—and from ʿAbdān ibn Zarrīn (1), ʿAlī ibn Ḥaydara, Naṣr ibn Muqātil, al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Bunn, Abū Yaʿlā ibn al-Ḥubūbī, Ḥamza ibn Karrūs, Ḥamza ibn Asad al-Qalānsī, and several others.

He kept close company with the ḥadith authority Ibn ʿAsākir, narrated extensively from him, graduated under his tutelage, and was deeply devoted to this discipline.

He travelled widely. In Ḥamā he heard from Muḥammad ibn Ẓafar al-Ḥujja; in Aleppo from Abū Ṭālib ibn al-ʿAjamī; in Mosul from al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Kaʿbī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿdūn, and Sulaymān ibn Khamīs; in Baghdad from Hibat Allah al-Daqqāq, Ibn al-Baṭṭī, and others; in Hamadhān from Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār and others; in Isfahan from Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Māshādha, Abū Rashīd ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar, and several others; and in Tabriz from the descendants of al-ʿAṭṭārī.

He compiled al-Muʿjam (2) and produced a number of works, including Virtues of the Companions, High-Chains of Transmission of Ibn ʿUyayna, Virtues of Jerusalem, and The Tetralogies of the Successors. His books were later destroyed in a fire at al-Kallāsa, but he subsequently endowed another library.

Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Dubyathī declared him reliable, saying, “He wrote to us granting ijāza (licence to transmit).”

He died in 586 AH at the age of forty-nine.

Qāsim ibn Muḥammad the ḥāfiẓ told us, Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq told us, my grandfather al-Ḥusayn ibn Hibat Allah ibn Maḥfūẓ told us, my brother Abū al-Mawāhib told us,