He was born in the year 196 AH.

He heard ḥadīth from: Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf al-Tinnīsī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ—the scribe of al-Layth—Sulaymān ibn Abī Karīmah, Shuʿayb ibn Yaḥyā, Muḥammad ibn Makhlad al-Ruʿaynī, Ṣafwān ibn Ṣāliḥ, and a number of others.

He recited the Qur’an before the students of Warsh.

Those who studied under him include Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Shanabūdh and Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Andalusī.

Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Tāʾib transmitted the variant readings (ḥurūf) from him, and Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Razzaq did the same in the book he sent to them both.

Among those who narrated from him are Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Wāʿiẓ, Aḥmad ibn ʿUtbah al-Rāzī, Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAssāl, Abū al-Qāsim Sulaymān al-Ṭabarānī, and many others.

He was brown-skinned, of medium height (1), and large-eared.

Abū Shaykh said: “The people of Ramla collected five hundred dinars for him so that he would read the tafsīr to them, but he declined. When he reached Bayt al-Maqdis they gathered—combining what came from there and from Ramla—one thousand dinars, whereupon he read the book to them. He died in that same year, namely 287 AH.”

Al-Nasāʾī judged him weak.

Abū Saʿīd ibn Yūnus said: “He died in Damietta in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 289 AH.”

I say: this last report is the more reliable.