, al-Baghdādī, al-Azajī, the architect, the mason; he was also known as Ibn Shistān.

He was born in the early thirties of that century.

He heard hadith from Abū Bakr ibn al-Zāghūnī, Abū al-Waqt, Saʿīd ibn al-Bannāʾ, Abū al-Fath al-Karūkhī, Muḥammad ibn Nāṣir, Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿAbbāsī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Turaykī, Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh ibn al-Wāthiq, Naṣr ibn Naṣr al-ʿUkbarī, Aḥmad ibn Nāqa, and Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ruṭabī.

He also received transmission through his father’s dictation, as well as by his own direct audition.

Licences were granted to him by Wajīh al-Shahhāmī and Abū al-Barakāt ibn al-Furāwī. His uncle, ʿAlī ibn Abī Saʿd al-Khabbāz, was counted among the distinguished students of Baghdad.

Shistān is pronounced with a kasrah on the first letter, though I have seen some people pronounce it with a ḍammah.

Among those who narrated from him were al-Birzālī, al-Ḍiyāʾ, Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim, al-Ṣāḥib ʿUmar ibn al-ʿAdīm, his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faraj ibn al-Dabbāb, al-Kamāl Aḥmad ibn al-Naṣībī, and others. He taught and related hadith in Aleppo and Damascus.

Ibn Nuqtah ⦗1⦘ said: “He was difficult-natured and outwardly coarse; I heard most of the students speak ill of him.”

Al-Mundhirī ⦗2⦘ stated: “He died on the fifth of Dhu al-Ḥijjah, 619 AH.”