He was Shaykh al-Islām, Abū Muḥammad al-Baghdādī, known as al-Bazzār, the master-reciter.
He was born in 150 AH.
He heard ḥadith from Mālik ibn Anas, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Abū ʿAwanah, Abū Shihāb al-Ḥannāṭ ʿAbd Rabbih, Shurayk the judge, Ḥammād ibn Yaḥyā al-Abaḥ, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, and several others.
He studied Qurʾānic recitation under Sulaym and under Abū Yūsuf al-Aʿshā, among others.
He acquired the variant readings (ḥurūf) from Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, Isḥāq al-Musayyabī, and a circle of scholars, and he went on to preside over the teaching of both recitation and ḥadith transmission.
Those who received his recitation directly include: Aḥmad ibn Yazīd al-Ḥulwānī, Salamah ibn ʿĀṣim, Muḥammad ibn al-Jahm al-Simmarī (1), Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Kisāʾī, Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Warrāq, Idrīs al-Ḥaddād, and many others.
Among those who narrated ḥadith from him are Muslim in his Ṣaḥīḥ, Abū Dāwūd in his Sunan, Abū Zurʿah, Abū Ḥātim, Mūsā ibn Hārūn, Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Abān al-Sarrāj, his son Muḥammad ibn Khalaf, and a great many others.
He held a sound, firmly established preference in the variant readings—utterly free of anomaly—and he hardly ever deviated