son of ʿAlī, a Hamadhānī, also styled al-Kisāʾī, and more popularly known as Ibn Dīzil.
He was nicknamed “Dābbat ʿAffān” because of his constant attendance upon ʿAffān, and he was also called “Sayfannah.” Sayfannah is a bird found in Egypt that scarcely alights on a tree without stripping it of its leaves. In the same way, whenever Ibrāhīm reached a teacher he would not leave him until he had exhausted everything the shaykh could impart.
He studied in the Two Sanctuaries, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the Jibāl region, gathering and preserving what he heard in full.
He was born a little before 200 AH.
He received narrations from Abū Nuʿaym, Abū Mushir, Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, ʿAffān, Abū al-Yamān, Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb, Ādam ibn Abī Iyās, ʿAlī ibn ʿAyyāsh, ʿAmr ibn Ṭalḥah al-Qannād (1), ʿAtīq ibn Yaʿqūb, Abū al-Jamāhir, al-Qaʿnabī, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Muṭahhar, Qurrat ibn Ḥabīb, Yaḥyā al-Wuḥāẓī, Aṣbagh ibn al-Faraj, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways, ʿĪsā Qālūn (2), Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr, and their contemporaries.
Those who transmitted from him include Abū ʿAwānah, Aḥmad ibn Hārūn al-Bardījī (3), Aḥmad ibn Marwān al-Dīnawarī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān, ʿAlī ibn Ḥumshādh al-Naysābūrī, ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ al-Mustamlī, and Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Burūjirdī.