al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Yaʿlā al-Jazarī, originally from Ḥarrān and a merchant by trade.
He was born in Ḥarrān on the Day of Sacrifice in 542 AH.
In Egypt he auditioned the Khilaʿiyyāt, the “twenties” fascicle (1), from Abū Muḥammad ibn Rifāʿah.
At the frontier city he studied under al-Silafī.
In Baghdad he heard from Ibn al-Baṭṭī, Abū Ḥanīfah al-Khaṭībī, Aḥmad ibn al-Muqarrab, Yaḥyā ibn Thābit, Abū Bakr ibn al-Naqūr, Ibn al-Khashshāb, Shuhdah, and a number of others.
In Cairo he received from ʿAlī ibn Naṣr al-Artāḥī, the transmitter from Abū ʿAlī ibn Nabḥān.
Licences were granted him by Hibat Allāh ibn Abī Sharīk al-Ḥāsib, Abū al-Qāsim Saʿīd ibn al-Bannāʾ, and Abū al-Waqt al-Sijzī, the last through the facilitation of his maternal uncle, the ḥadith scholar Ḥammād al-Ḥarrānī.
He travelled widely, then settled in Alexandria and became its leading authority in isnād transmission.
Those who narrated from him include Ibn al-Najjār, al-Mundhirī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn al-Najīb, Abū Muḥammad ibn al-Shamʿah, Abū al-ʿIzz ibn Maḥāsin, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Manbijī, ʿAṭiyyah ibn Mājid, Kāfūr al-Ṣawwāf, and Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Sharīshī.
Among those from whom we ourselves received his narration were Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Fuwī, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, and Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad al-Judhāmī.
The last person to take transmission from him by simple ijāzah was the judge Taqī al-Dīn ibn Qudāmah.
ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥājib said: “A shaykh, a learned man and righteous jurist, vast in what he had memorised, trustworthy, an excellent listener, abundant in auditions; and his original transcripts are in the hands of the ḥadith scholars.”
I add: he lived to a great age, and students undertook journeys to seek him out.