some say he was the client of ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Sāʾib, the renowned Qur’an reciter. Others maintain that he was the client of Qays ibn al-Ḥārith al-Makhzūmī.
He transmitted ḥadith from Ibn ʿAbbās—abundantly and with excellence—and from him he learned Qur’an recitation, exegesis, and jurisprudence. He also narrated from Abu Hurayrah, ʿĀʾishah, Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqāṣ, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr, Ibn ʿUmar, Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj, Umm Kurz, Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah, Abu Saʿīd al-Khudrī, Umm Hānī, Usayd ibn Zuhayr, and many others.
A number of scholars read the Qur’an to him, among them Ibn Kathīr ad-Dārī, Abu ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, and Ibn Muḥayṣin.
Those who reported from him include ʿIkrimah, Ṭāwūs, and ʿAṭāʾ—his contemporaries—as well as ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, Abu Zubayr, al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah, Ibn Abī Najīḥ, Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir, Sulaymān al-Aʿmash, Ayyūb as-Sakhtiyānī, Ibn ʿAwn, ʿUmar ibn Dharr, Maʿrūf ibn Mushkān, Qatādah ibn Diʿāmah, al-Faḍl ibn Maymūn, Ibrāhīm ibn Muhājir, Ḥumayd al-Aʿraj, Bukayr ibn al-Akhnas, al-Ḥasan al-Fuqaymī, Khuṣayf, Sulaymān al-Aḥwal, Sayf ibn Sulaymān, ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jazarī, Abu Ḥuṣayn, al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab, Fiṭr ibn Khalīfah, al-Naḍr ibn ʿArabi, and many others.
Al-Ansārī said: “Al-Faḍl ibn Maymūn narrated to us, ‘I heard Mujāhid say: I reviewed the Qur’an with Ibn ʿAbbās thirty times.’ (1)
Ibn Isḥāq transmitted, through Abān ibn Ṣāliḥ, from Mujāhid, who said: ‘I presented the Qur’an to Ibn ʿAbbās on three occasions, pausing at every verse to ask him, ‘For what was it revealed and in what circumstances?’ (2)
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam said: ‘Al-Shāfiʿī narrated to us, he narrated…’