Ibn al-Qūṭiyya's student al-Faraḍī composed a short sketch of his master for his biographical dictionary, preserved in a late medieval manuscript discovered in Tunis in 1887.
[2] Under Saʿīd ibn Qāhir he studied, memorized and transmitted the great work of history known as Al-Kāmil (The Complete) by the famous Baṣriyyan philologist, al-Mubarrad.
The influence of his royal ancestry probably lies behind his defense of treaties between the Arab Muslim conquerors and the Gothic aristocracy—both secular and ecclesiastical— that preserved them on their estates.
Al-Qūṭiyya contests criticisms by historians such as Rhazes, arguing that these treaties bolstered Islamic hegemony at minimal military cost.
He refutes a claim that the Umayyad emirs of Córdoba retained the fifth (quinto or khums, a tax) for the Caliph of Damascus.