In Isfahan he attended lessons, and in Herat he studied with ʿAbd al-Jalīl ibn Abī Saʿd al-Muʿaddal, his senior-most shaykh.

He obtained the ḥadith of al-Baghawī and Ibn Ṣāʿid with an elevated chain (1).

In Hamadhan he heard from: Abū Zurʿah Ṭāhir ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī, Muḥammad ibn Bunaymān, the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār, and a number of others.

In Marw he studied under: Masʿūd ibn Muḥammad al-Marwazī and others;
in Naysābūr under: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī;
in Sijistān under: Abū ʿArūbah ʿAbd al-Hādī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zāhid;
in Baghdad under: Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Raḥbī, Abū Muḥammad Ibn al-Khushshāb, Fakhr al-Nisāʾ Shuhda, and many others;
in Wāsiṭ under: Hibat Allāh ibn Makhlad al-Azdī and Abū Ṭālib al-Kattānī;
in Mosul under: its preacher Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭūsī and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿdūn al-Qurṭubī the Qurʾān-reciter;
in Damascus under: Muḥammad ibn Barakah al-Ṣilḥī and Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan the ḥāfiẓ;
in Alexandria under: the ḥāfiẓ Abū Ṭāhir al-Salafī and Abū Muḥammad al-ʿUthmānī;
and in Egypt under: Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Raḥbī and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Barrī the grammarian.

He compiled Arbaʿī al-Buldān, whose chains of transmission are mutually independent, together with its appendices and related discussions. The work filled two volumes (2), displaying his prodigious memory and dignity, though it contains a few slips: Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī (3) and Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Baḥayrī (4) are repeated.

He also produced a substantial work entitled al-Mādih wa al-Mamdūḥ (The Praiser and the Praised), which gathers the biographies of many ḥuffāẓ and leading scholars, its nucleus being the life of Shaykh al-Islām Abū Ismāʿīl al-Harawī.

Ibn Nuqṭah mentioned him, saying (5): “He was learned, reliable, trustworthy, and righteous, yet he was…”