; al-Ḥusayn ibn Ashalīhā; Ḥamzah ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Mufarrij al-Azdī; Abū Ṭāhir Rāshid ibn Muḥammad; Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Nabīh; ʿAlī ibn Zayd; ʿAlī ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Khaldūn; Hibat Allāh ibn al-Muslim al-Raḥabī; ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥarastānī; and many others besides them.

His range of transmission and audition was broader than that of Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, and he produced commendable works. Nevertheless, Ibn al-Jawzī far surpassed him in his knowledge of transmitters, textual criticism, and several other disciplines. Neither of them, however, travelled for study: Abū Muḥammad was content with his own city and with his father—and that, by itself, is no small advantage—while Abū al-Faraj was content with Baghdad.

Indeed (1), Abū Muḥammad performed the pilgrimage in 555 AH, and in Mecca he heard hadith from Masʿūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, Aḥmad ibn al-Muqarrab, Abū al-Najīb al-Suhrawardī, and Fakhr al-Nisāʾ Shuhdah.

He also auditioned—and later taught—in Egypt, the Ḥijāz, Jerusalem, and Damascus.

He copied, in his characteristically poor hand, an immeasurable quantity of material; he dictated, compiled, and was praised for both his memory and his understanding, although his script is almost devoid of diacritical dots and vowel marks.

He produced a large book on jihād in which he left nothing wanting; a volume on the virtues of Jerusalem; another on the rites of pilgrimage; and a book on those who narrated hadith in the cities and villages of Greater Syria. For his own use he extracted collections of muwāfaqāt (parallel isnāds), abdāl (substituted chains), and subāʿiyyāt (chains with seven transmitters between him and the Prophet). He dictated several sessions, narrated extensively, and alone preserved certain lofty, high-isnād traditions.

Al-ʿIzz the genealogist mentioned him, saying: “What he loved most of all was playful banter.”