and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd, Khalaf ibn Hishām, and a host of others besides them.

His circle of transmission was broader than that of his father.

Those who narrated from him include: his own son, the ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad; Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī; Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd; Muḥammad ibn Makhlad; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥakīmī; Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣaffār; Abū Sahl ibn Ziyād; Qāsim ibn Aṣbagh; Aḥmad ibn Kāmil; and many others.

Al-Khaṭīb said: “He was reliable, learned, precise, a ḥāfiẓ, well-versed in the chronicles of people, and a transmitter of literature. He acquired the science of hadith from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn; genealogical knowledge from Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī; the history of past events (ayyām al-nās) from Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Madāʾinī; and adab from Muḥammad ibn Sallām al-Jumaḥī.”

He authored the book al-Tārīkh (“History”), which he compiled with exceptional skill and whose benefits are abundant; I know of no work richer in useful material.

Al-Dāraqutnī mentioned him, saying, “Reliable, trustworthy.”

I say: Much of his transmission has reached us through al-Silafī and Shuhdah.

Ibn Qāniʿ stated that he died in Jumādā al-Ūlā of the year 279 AH. Ibn al-Munādī recorded the same and added that he had reached ninety-four years of age. Others said he was somewhat younger, and that seems more plausible; for had he been ninety-four, his birth would have fallen in 185 AH.

He belonged to a family of ḥuffāẓ. His father had him attend hadith sessions while he was still a youth, enabling him to meet transmitters such as Yazīd ibn Hārūn and his peers.

The apparent conclusion is that he was born in the eighties of the second century AH—and Allah knows best.