He was the leading writer from Ahmad al-Mansur's court in Morocco next to Abd al-Aziz al-Fishtali.
[1] His family was called the Ibn al-Qadi, a Berber family that belonged to the Miknasa tribe, a tribe of the Zenata confederation.
Their ancestor was the Miknasi tribal chief, Musa ibn Abi al-Afiya.
[1] The Ibn al-qadi family gave birth to distinguished people, who, during the previous centuries, had held high political or religious offices and had become famous as islamic scholars.
[1] A number of Ibn al-Qadi's scholarly works survive, including two collections of biographies of great documentary value: