He travelled widely, studying under Ibn Jurayj, Ibn Abī Dhʾīb, al-Awzāʿī, Mālik, and Nāfiʿ ibn Abī Nuʿaym, before whom he also recited the Qur’an.

Those who transmitted from him include ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb, Aṣbagh ibn Khalīl, ʿUthmān ibn Ayyūb, his son ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ghāzī, and others.

He had committed the Muwaṭṭaʾ to memory, and he belonged to the client-class of the Banū Umayyah.

Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī said: “He read to Nāfiʿ, mastered Nāfiʿ’s preferred mode of recitation, and was the first person to introduce both Nāfiʿ’s reading and Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ to al-Andalus.”

On his authority it is reported that he said, “I compared this copy of mine with Nāfiʿ’s codex thirteen times.”

Those who conveyed his manner of recitation include his son ʿAbd Allāh—an upright imām, devout, given to night worship, whose supplications were answered, of high standing, and skilled in the orthography of the muṣḥaf. He used to say, “I have not told a lie since I reached puberty.”

Al-Dānī stated: “He was from Córdoba,” while Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ maintained that “he belonged to the people of Ifrīqiyah.”

Aṣbagh ibn Khalīl heard al-Ghāzī declare: “By Allah, I have never uttered a single lie since I performed my ritual bath; had ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz not said this before me, I would never have claimed it.” (1)

I say: al-Ghāzī passed away in 199 AH.