The Chief Judge ʿImād al-Dīn Abū Ṣāliḥ, son of the ascetic ḥadīth master Abū Bakr—originally from Jīl, later of Baghdad, resident in the Azaj quarter, and a Hanbalī—
was born in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir of the year 564 AH. When he was barely a month old, Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn al-Baṭṭī, al-Mubārak ibn Muḥammad al-Badrāʾī and a group of scholars granted him an ijāzah (licence to transmit ḥadīth).

He later heard ḥadīth from his father and mother; ʿAlī ibn ʿAsākir al-Baṭāʾiḥī; Khadījah bt. al-Nahrawānī; Shuhdah the Scribe; Muslim ibn Thābit; ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq ibn Yūsuf; Aḥmad ibn al-Mubārak al-Muraqqaʿātī; ʿĪsā ibn Aḥmad al-Dūshābī; Muḥammad ibn Badr al-Shīḥī; Fāṭimah bt. Abī Ghālib al-Māwardī; and Abū Shākir al-Saqlāṭūnī.

He studied jurisprudence under his father and under Abū al-Fatḥ ibn al-Manī. In time he taught, issued legal opinions, engaged in public debate and attained a position of leadership.

Those who transmitted from him include Ibn al-Dubaythī; Ibn al-Najjār; Abū al-Muẓaffar ibn al-Nābulusī; al-Shams ibn Hāmil; Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Fārūthī; al-Tāj al-Gharrāfī; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Sharīshī; Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faraj ibn al-Dabbāb; Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Balbān; Abū al-Maʿālī al-Abarqūhī; and many others.

He compiled for himself a forty-ḥadīth collection (al-Arbaʿīn), taught in his grandfather’s madrasa as well as in the Shāṭiʾah madrasa, preached to the public, authored works on Ṣūfī practice, and held the judiciary under the caliph al-Ẓāhir bi-Amr Allāh and in the early part of al-Mustanṣir’s reign, after which he was dismissed.

Al-Ḍiyāʾ said: “He is a jurist of generous spirit and upright character.” Ibn al-Najjār added: “He studied the Khilāf under Abū Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿAlī al-Nūqānī.”