He heard ḥadith from Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, al-Sarī ibn Khuzaymah, Abū Qilābah al-Raqāshī, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAbsī—the companion of Wakīʿ—Abū Yaḥyā ibn Abī Masarrah, al-Ḥasan ibn Sallām al-Sawwāq (1), ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī, and their contemporaries.
He undertook an extensive scholarly journey and acquired weighty learning.
Among those who narrated from him were Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Shaybānī—his close companion—Abū ʿAlī al-Naysābūrī, Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim, and others.
Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUqdah said, “I heard from him, and he was one of the ḥuffāẓ” (2).
The author says: He died in the prime of life, a little past fifty.
He passed away in Ṭābarān (3) in 315 AH.
Al-Ḥākim praised him profusely and held him in great esteem.
His father, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, was a scholar of ḥadith from Rayy who later moved to Naysābūr. He narrated from Sahl ibn ʿUthmān, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Yaḥyā al-Madīnī, Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ, and many others, and he died in 293 AH. His grandson Abū al-Ḥasan recorded that date.
Abū al-Ḥasan (4) related ḥadith from his own father, from Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd ibn Sulaymān, and from Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn al-Akhram.