al-Hazzānī, Abū Bakr ibn Khuzaymah, Abū Bakr ibn Durayd, and many others besides.

He was a veritable ocean of knowledge.

Ibn Ḥibbān said: “He was a transmitter for al-Aṣmaʿī.”

Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī said: “Al-Riyāshī was a memoriser of language and poetry, and he reported copiously from al-Aṣmaʿī, although he also received learning from others.”

Among those who studied under him were al-Mubarrad and Abū Bakr ibn Durayd.

Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Azhar—who possessed accounts about al-Riyāshī—narrated to me: “We used to see him come to Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Mubarrad during a visit he made from Basra. Abū al-ʿAbbās Thaʿlab met him as well, and he preferred him and gave him precedence.” (1)

Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb said: “Al-Riyāshī came to Baghdad and taught there. He was reliable, and he held an elevated station in belles-lettres and in the science of grammar.

He had memorised the works of Abū Zayd and the entire corpus of al-Aṣmaʿī.

He read Sībawayh’s Kitāb with Abū ʿUthmān al-Māzinī, and al-Māzinī used to say, ‘Al-Riyāshī read the Kitāb to me, and he understands it better than I do.’ (2) (3)

Ibn Durayd said: “The Zanj killed him in Basra in 257 AH.”

ʿAlī ibn Abī Umayyah said: “When the Zanj entered Basra and did what they did, killing whomever they killed—that was in Shawwāl of the same year, 257 AH—we were informed that they burst into the mosque upon al-Riyāshī with their swords while he was standing, performing the mid-morning prayer, and they struck him…"