His father died in 577 AH; he had been the Inspector-General of the army.
- Ibn al-Rabīʿ – Yaḥyā ibn al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān al-ʿUmari
The shaykh, Imām, and erudite polymath, Majd al-Dīn Abū ʿAlī Yaḥyā, son of the Imām and jurist Abū al-Faḍl al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān ibn Ḥarraz al-ʿUmari; a native of Wāsiṭ, a Shāfiʿī, an authority in uṣūl, and lecturer at the Niẓāmiyya.
He was born in Wāsiṭ in 528 AH (1).
He studied the variant Qurʾānic readings with his maternal grandfather Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Turkān, and in his hometown he compiled notes on the juristic disagreements from Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā ibn al-Farrāʾ al-Ṣaghīr when the latter served as judge of Wāsiṭ.
In his youth he received a great deal of ḥadīth from Abū al-Karam ibn al-Jalakht, Qāḍī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Julābī, and Aḥmad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Āmidī.
He travelled to Baghdad, where he studied jurisprudence under the Niẓāmiyya professor Abū al-Najīb (2); he also studied under his own father and under Abū Jaʿfar Hibat Allāh ibn al-Būqī.
While in Baghdad he heard ḥadīth from Ibn Nāṣir (3), Abū al-Waqt (4), and ʿAbd al-Khāliq ibn Yūsuf.
He later went on to Nīshāpūr, studied there with Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, and excelled.