[3] The family eventually settled in Tunis due to fighting between Christians and Muslims in Spain, where Ibn Sayyid al-Nas had a son.
He began his education during his early teens under theologians such as Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, from whom he learned Muslim jurisprudence on the Zahiri rite for over thirty years.
[3][5] Ibn Sayyid al-Nas spent a brief period of time in Aznalcázar before moving to North Africa and accepting positions as the imam of mosques in Tangier and later Béjaïa.
[2] When his reputation spread into Africa, the Hafsid Caliph Muhammad I al-Mustansir invited him to Tunis where he was a favored scholar of the court until his death.
[7] Ibn Sayyid al-Nas was said to have memorized over ten thousand hadith, or recorded statements of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, along with their chains of authentication; his students were often awed by his ability to accurately recall all of this from memory.