—a lineage said to reach all the way back to Sabīʿ, for he was of the progeny of Sabīʿ ibn Saʿb ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Kathīr ibn Mālik ibn Jusham ibn Ḥāshid ibn Jusham ibn Khayrān ibn Nawf ibn Hamdān.
May Allah have mercy on him; he was a practicing scholar and one of the eminent Tābiʿīn.
He used to say, “I was born two years before the end of ʿUthmān’s caliphate, and I saw ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib delivering a sermon.”
He narrated hadith from Muʿāwiyah, ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim, Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, Zayd ibn Arqam, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, Abū Juḥayfah al-Suʾāʾī, Sulaymān ibn Ṣurad, ʿUmārah ibn Ruwaybah al-Thaqafī, ʿAbd Allah ibn Yazīd al-Anṣārī, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith al-Khuzāʿī, and many other Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).
He also personally saw Usāmah ibn Zayd al-Nabawī.
He learned the Qur’an under al-Aswad ibn Yazīd and Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī.
A tireless seeker of knowledge, he enjoyed great standing.
Among the Tābiʿīn and their successors from whom he also transmitted are: ʿAlqamah ibn Qays, Masrūq ibn al-Ajdaʿ, al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays al-Fihrī, ʿAmr ibn Shuraḥbīl al-Hamdānī, al-Ḥārith al-Aʿwar, Hubayrah ibn Yarīm, Shimr ibn Dhī al-Jawshan, ʿUmar ibn Saʿd al-Zuhrī, ʿUbaydah ibn ʿAmr al-Salamī, ʿĀṣim ibn Ḍamrah, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUtbah ibn Masʿūd, ʿAmr ibn Maymūn al-Awadī, Ṣilah ibn Zufar al-ʿAbsī, Saʿīd ibn Wahb al-Khaywānī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abzā al-Khuzāʿī, Ḥārithah ibn Muḍarrib, ʿAbd Allah ibn Maʿqil, Ṣilah ibn Zufar (a second time), Abū al-Aḥwaṣ ʿAwf ibn Mālik, Muslim ibn Nudhayr, al-Aswad ibn Hilāl, Shurayḥ the judge, Abū ʿUbaydah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd al-Hudhalī, Kumayl ibn Ziyād al-Nakhaʿī, al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufrah the governor, al-Aswad ibn Hilāl al-Muḥāribī, and many other senior Tābiʿīn.
He was, in fact, the sole transmitter from several of these authorities.