He travelled through Iraq, Greater Syria, and Egypt, then settled in Baghdad. He narrated ḥadīth from Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, and a great many others, while al-Dāraqutnī and several other masters of ḥadīth transmitted from him.

Al-Dāraqutnī said: “Among our teachers we never met anyone who knew the chains of transmission and the texts better than he did. He was the most learned of the shaykhs and had sat with al-Muzanī and al-Rabīʿ.”

Abū ʿAbdillāh ibn Baṭṭah (1) said: “We used to attend Ibn Ziyād’s gathering, and he estimated those present with inkwells to be thirty thousand.” (2)

Al-Khaṭīb relates: Abū Saʿd al-Mālinī told us, Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar ibn Masrūr told us: I heard Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād al-Naysābūrī say, “I know a man who for forty years stood in night prayer, never sleeping except while squatting, who lived each day on five grains, and who would perform the dawn prayer with the ablution of the night prayer.” He would then add, “That man is I—this was all before I came to know Umm ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. What can I say to the one who married me off?” After this he said, “He only intended good.” (3)

He died this year at the age of eighty-six.

ʿAffān ibn Sulaymān (4) ibn Ayyūb, Abū al-Ḥasan the Merchant: he resided in Egypt and endowed profitable properties there for the benefit of the people of ḥadīth and for the descendants of the Prophet’s Household (may Allah be pleased with them). A prosperous trader whose testimony was accepted by the judges, he died in Shaʿbān (5) of this year.

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (6): ʿAlī ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Bishr Isḥāq ibn Sālim ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mūsā ibn Bilāl ibn Abū Burdah ibn Abū Mūsā ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qays, al-Ashʿarī.