He is not to be confused with Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Aʿrābī the philologist; that scholar had died several years before Aḥmad was even born (1). He himself was born in the early 240s AH.

He heard ḥadīth from al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ al-Zaʿfarānī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ayyūb al-Mukhar­rimī, Saʿdān ibn Naṣr, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Daqīqī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Munādī, ʿAbbās al-Tarqūfī, ʿAbbās ibn Muḥammad al-Dūrī, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAbsī, and many others besides.

From their narrations he compiled a large Muʿjam (2). He travelled through the provinces, gathered material, composed books, kept company with the spiritual masters, devoted himself to worship and God-consciousness, and wrote “The Merits of the Sufis.” He also transmitted Abū Dāwūd’s Sunan, inserting into it additional material, both in wording and in chain of transmission.

Among those who reported from him were: Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khafīf; Abū Bakr ibn al-Muqriʾ; Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Manda; the judge Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mufarrij; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf al-Iṣbahānī; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jumayʿ al-Ṣaydāwī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Dimashqī al-Qaṭṭān; Ṣadaqah ibn al-Dalm; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Naḥḥās; the two Egyptians ʿAbd Allāh and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, sons of Munīr; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḍayfūn—the teacher of Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr; Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṭarsūsī; along with a great many pilgrims and long-term residents of the Sanctuary.

He was a man of great stature, widely renowned, and possessed chains of transmission noted for their high elevation.