Ibn al-Samʿānī (Arabic: إبن السمعاني, 1113–1166), full name Abū Saʿd ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abī Bakr Muḥammad ibn Abi ʾl-Muẓaffar Manṣūr al-Tamīmī al-Marwazī al-Shafiʿī al-Samʿānī,[a] nicknamed Tāj al-Islām (Crown of Islam)[b] and Qiwām al-Dīn (Support of the Faith), was an Arab Muslim scholar of biography, history, hadith, Shafi'i jurisprudence and scriptural exegesis.
[4] Under his uncles' guidance, ʿAbd al-Karīm studied adab (etiquette), ʿarabiyya (Arabic language and literature), fiqh (jurisprudence) and the Qurʾān.
[4] Accompanied by his uncle Aḥmad al-Samʿānī,[7] he went to Nīshāpūr to study the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj.
[4] Although he made his permanent residence in Merv, where he also taught, Ibn al-Samʿānī travelled extensively as part of his personal ṭalab al-ʿilm.
Besides Mecca, he visited Medina, Damascus, Iṣfahān, Hamadān, Khwārazm, Samarqand, Bukhārā, Balkh and Herāt, always stopping at the schools.
Yāqūt mentions how he read Ibn al-Samʿānī's own copy of Taʾrīkh Marw, one of his early works.