In Andalusian usage the word shalūbīn denotes someone who is fair-skinned and blond.

He was born in 562 AH in Seville.

He received ḥadīth from Abū Bakr Ibn al-Jadd, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Zarqun, Abū Muḥammad Ibn Būnah, Abū Zayd al-Suhaylī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim Ibn al-Faras, and a number of others.
He also held a special ijāza (written licence to transmit) from Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī, Abū Bakr Ibn Khayr, and Abūʾl-Qāsim Ibn Hubaysh.

He enjoyed particular favour with Ibn al-Jadd and was reared in his household, for his father had served Ibn al-Jadd; thus he accumulated a vast store of auditions.
He learned grammar from Ibn Malkūn and Abūʾl-Ḥasan Najba, becoming an unrivalled authority on the Arabic language whom no one could outstrip or match.

He sat at the head of the teaching circle for sixty years, but toward the end of his life he abandoned instruction because turmoil had engulfed the land and the enemy had taken control.

He left several useful writings and compiled for himself a mashyakha (personal register of teachers and transmissions) in which he documented the great breadth of what he had heard. Al-Abbār (1) said, “I heard people who disputed—and rejected—that breadth.”

His handwriting was elegant, and scholars beyond counting studied under him.

Ibn Khallikān (1) said: “I met a group of his pupils, each of whom declared, ‘Our shaykh Abū ʿAlī in no way falls short of Shaykh Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī.’ They also reported that, despite his excellence, he was somewhat absent-minded and appeared simple-minded. They recounted that he was once standing by a river with a notebook in his hand; it slipped into the water, so he tried to scoop it out with another notebook, and both were ruined.”

He produced two commentaries on the Jazūliyya.

He lived eighty-three years and died in Ṣafar, 645 AH.