He heard ḥadith from Ismāʿīl Sammūyah, Muḥammad ibn Ghālib Tamtām, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and their contemporaries.
Among those who related from him were Abū al-Shaykh, Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Khassāb, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Mihrān—the Qurʾān-reciter—Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim, and others.
According to the dating recorded by Abū Nuʿaym, he died in 322 AH (1).
Al-Ḥākim Ibn al-Bayyiʿ said, “I heard Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Shahīd say:
‘No one who has ever come to us in Herat matched Abū Jaʿfar al-Arzunānī in asceticism, God-fearing caution, powers of memorization, and precision.’” (2)
I (the author) say: he lived to roughly eighty years of age.
120 – al-Jurjīrī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ
The shaykh and trustworthy transmitter, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ, the Iṣfahānī known as al-Jurjīrī (3).
He heard from Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm Shādhān al-Fārisī, Muḥammad ibn ʿĀṣim al-Thaqafī, Masʿūd ibn Yazīd al-Qaṭṭān, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Jumaḥī, and Ḥajjāj ibn Qutaybah.