and Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd, together with a number of others; in Baghdad he heard from Muḥammad ibn Bakkār ibn al-Rayyān, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar al-Qawārīrī, and their whole cohort; in Basra from Shaybān ibn Farrūkh, Hudbah ibn Khālid, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ghiyāth, and many more; in Kūfa from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, Hannād, Ibn Abī Shaybah, and a group besides; in Madinah from Abū Muṣʿab, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī, and others; and in Syria from Hishām ibn ʿAmmār and Duḥaym.

I add: in Egypt he studied with Yūnus al-Ṣadafī, al-Rabīʿ al-Murādī, and Abū Ismāʿīl al-Muzanī, from whom he obtained the books of al-Shāfiʿī, committing them to memory and mastering their juristic import.

He wrote abundantly, excelled in the sciences of Islam, and was an imam, a mujtahid, a distinguished scholar—one of the most knowledgeable of his era regarding the disagreements of the Companions and their Followers; seldom do eyes behold his like.

Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb said (1): “He narrated from ʿAbdān ibn ʿUthmān,” and then named a number of others, adding, “He was among the most learned of people concerning the divergent rulings of the Companions and those who came after them.”

I say: It is reported that, without exception, he surpassed all the imams in knowledge of the scholars’ points of dispute.

Those who transmitted from him include: Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj; Muḥammad ibn al-Mundhir Shakkar; Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī; Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn al-Akhram; Abū al-Naḍr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, the jurist; his son Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn Naṣr; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Samarqandī; and many others besides.

Abū Bakr al-Ṣayrafī, a Shāfiʿī, said: “Had Ibn Naṣr authored nothing but his book on al-Qasāmah (the oaths required in homicide cases), he would still be counted among the most adept jurists.”

Abū Bakr ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣibghī also said—and someone asked him, “Will you not take note of Abū’s depth of mastery…”