He also granted authorizations to al-Jamāl Yaḥyā ibn al-Ṣayrafī, to al-Zakī ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, to al-Shams ibn ʿAllān, and to al-Fakhr ʿAlī.

Ibn Nuqṭa (1) said: “He was a shaykh—trustworthy, prolific, and truthful. I personally heard from him Sahih al-Bukhari, which he had himself received from Wajīh al-Shahhāmī, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Fārisī, and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Shāh; and I also heard Sahih Muslim from him. He had listened to it many times, and I examined his written audition of the first, second, and third volumes of Sahih Muslim dated 528 AH, when he was four years and five months old (2).

Our companion Ibn Hilāla told me: “Our shaykh Manṣūr transmitted al-Khattābī’s Gharib al-Hadith from his grandfather, though with some gaps. We therefore read the work to him. Later, when I reached Samarqand— or, he said, Bukhara— I found part of a copy of al-Khattābī’s Gharib that contained the very portion missing from Manṣūr’s version, and it bore his audition recorded with a date other than that reading. This attests to the shaykh’s honesty and shows that he had received many lengthy books from his grandfather.”

He (3) added: “He also heard al-Thaʿlabī’s Tafsir from ʿAbbasa al-ʿAssārī.”

Ibn Hilāla further said to me: “I saw al-Bayhaqī’s original manuscript of al-Sunan al-Kabīr. Some scattered sections had been lost, but everything I could find I read to him, while the remainder of the book I held by authorization if not by direct audition.”

He then said: “His birth took place in Ramadan of the year 523 AH.”

I add: He performed the pilgrimage and taught in Baghdad alongside his father.