He claimed that he had heard directly from Qutaybah ibn Saʿid, yet he had never even met him.
He was born(1) in 231 AH, whereas Qutaybah died in the town of Balad at the end of 240 AH(2).
Abu Bakr al-Samʿani recorded his date of birth in his Amali(3) and said: “He was reliable and devout.”
I add: he himself stated, “I heard the Jamiʿ in the year 248 AH, and once again in 252 AH.”(4)
Those who transmitted from him include: the jurist Abu Zayd al-Marwazi, the hadith master Abu ʿAli ibn al-Sakan, Abu al-Haytham al-Kushmeihani(5), Abu Muhammad ibn Hammuyah al-Sarakhsī, Muhammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Shabbuyah, Abu Hamid Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Nuʿaymi, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ahmad al-Mustamli, Ismaʿil ibn Hajib al-Kushani, Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Jurjani(6), and others; the last of them to pass away was al-Kushani(7).
(1) That is, al-Farabari.
(2) See the biography of Qutayba ibn Saʿid in Tarikh Baghdad, 12:464–470, and Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 8:358–361.
(3) The reference is to Imam Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbar al-Samani, father of Imam Abu Saʿd, author of al-Ansab. A jurist and hadith scholar, he dictated 140 teaching sessions on hadith; his son commented, “Whoever studies them will realize that no one before him produced their like.” He died in 510 AH/1116 CE, a little over forty years old. Al-Ansab, 7:140–141.
(4) See al-Ansab, 9:261.
(5) Pronounced with damma on the kaf, sukūn on the shīn, kasra on the mīm, sukūn on the yāʾ, fatḥa on the hāʾ, and ending with a nūn: al-Kushmīhan. This nisba refers to a village in the environs of Marw. Al-Ansab, 10:436.
(6) The manuscript leaves a blank here; we have filled it in from Tarikh Jurjan, p. 384.
(7) Abu ʿAli Ismaʿil ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Hajib, al-Kashani al-Hajibi, died in al-Kashaniya—a town in the land of Sind near Samarqand—in 391 AH/1001 CE. Al-Ansab, 4:11; al-Dhahabi dates his death to 392 AH/1002 CE in al-Ibar, 3:52.