Those who narrated from him include al-Dāraqutnī, Judge Abū Bakr al-Abharī, Abū Bakr ibn al-Muqriʾ, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Ḥabābah, ʿĪsā ibn al-Wazīr, and a number of others.

He was born in Basra in 243 AH, and he assumed the judgeship of Madīnat al-Manṣūr in 284 AH. In intellect, composure, and sharpness he had no equal; indeed, when someone wished to lavish praise on a person he would say, “It is as though he were Abū ʿUmar the Judge.”

Thereafter the Caliph al-Muqtadir Billah entrusted him with the judiciary of the eastern quarter and several surrounding districts, and in 317 AH appointed him Chief Judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt).

People transmitted from him a vast store of knowledge in hadith and fiqh, and no assembly for hadith was deemed more august than his: al-Baghawī sat on his right, Ibn Ṣāʿid on his left, while Ibn Ziyād al-Naysābūrī and others sat before him.

He used to relate that his grandfather had taught him a hadith which he memorised at the age of four: from Wahb ibn Jarīr, from his father, from al-Ḥasan, who said, “There is no harm in applying kohl for a fasting person.” (1)

Al-Khaṭīb said: “He was without peer in judicial reasoning, intelligence, and the ability to convey many meanings with few words.” (2)

It was also said: When a man was overcome with anger he would exclaim, “Had I been Abū ʿUmar the Judge, I would not have borne it.”

His son succeeded him as judge of the eastern quarter.

He wrote down the fiqh of Ismāʿīl the Judge, in addition to a portion of Qurʾānic commentary,