He heard ḥadith from: Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī, Abū Nuʿaym ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Hishām, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ḥalabī, al-Qāsim ibn ʿUthmān al-Jūʿī, Muḥammad ibn Muṣaffā, al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī, Baraka ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥalabī, and a number of others.
He kept close company with al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī, and—according to al-Sulamī—he himself was counted among the leading shaykhs and scholars of Greater Syria.
Those who narrated from him include: Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr al-Rabaʿī, Abū Sulaymān ibn Zabr, the judge ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Adhnī, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd al-Kindī, Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim, Abū Bakr ibn al-Muqriʾ, the judge Abū Bakr al-Abharī, Abū Bakr ibn al-Sunnī, and many others, the last of whom was ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Kilābī—the brother of Tabūk.
Al-Ḥākim says in his book al-Kunā: “He was one of Allah’s righteous servants.”
Abū Nuʿaym, the ḥāfiẓ, adds: “A number of prominent figures—such as Ibrāhīm ibn al-Muwallad—studied under him, and he was ever committed to the Sacred Law, faithfully following it.”
I [the author] comment: meaning that he was free of the confusions and innovations of the Ṣūfīs.
Ibn Zabr states that he died in 318 AH, while Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Rāzī puts his death in 317. I add: he lived a little over ninety years.
288 – al-ʿAllāf, Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad *
The Imām, Qur’an reciter, and man of letters: Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn