al-Sīrāfī was a 10th century judge and grammarian from the city of Sīrāf in Iran. He was likely born between 892 and 902. He travelled to Oman to study law, then on to al-ʿAskar in Egypt under Abū ʿAbd-Allāh al-Saymarī. He eventually moved to Baghdad, learning grammar under Ibn al-Sarrāj (d. 929) and Mabramān. In the Qur’anic sciences, he was taught by Abū Bakr b. Mujāhid, while in lexicography he was a student of Ibn Durayd (d. 933). He eventually became a Hanafi judge and mufti in Baghdad, as well as teaching and copying manuscripts. In a debate in 932 called by the Abbasid vizier Abū’l-Fatḥ ibn al-Furāt (d. 938), al-Sīrāfī argued against the superiority of Aristotelian logic promoted by the Arab Christian philosopher Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus (d. 940), preferring to analyse logic through the study of Arabic grammar. al-Sirāfī wrote several works on grammar, philology, lexicography and geography, but only a few of these survive. His son Abū Muḥammad Yūsuf al-Sīrāfī (d. 995) studied with him and wrote commentaries on philology and lexicography also.