their client, a Basran, dark-skinned. Some said his walaʾ was to the clan of Ṭahiyyah, while others said it was to Juhaynah. He is counted among the younger Successors.
He heard from: Abū Burayd ʿAmr ibn Salimah al-Jarmī; Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī; Saʿīd ibn Jubayr; Abū l-ʿĀliyah al-Riyāḥī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaqīq; Abū Qilābah al-Jarmī; Mujāhid ibn Jabr; al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī; Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn; Muʿādhah al-ʿAdawiyyah; Qays ibn ʿAbāyah al-Ḥanafī; Abū Rajāʾ ʿImrān ibn Milḥān al-ʿAṭāridī; ʿIkrimah, the client of Ibn ʿAbbās; Abū Mijlaz Lāḥiq ibn Ḥumayd; Ḥafṣah bint Sīrīn; Yūsuf ibn Māhak; ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ; Nāfiʿ, the client of Ibn ʿUmar; Abū l-Shaʿthāʾ Jābir ibn Zayd; Ḥumayd ibn Hilāl; Abū l-Walīd ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith; al-Aʿraj; ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb; al-Qāsim ibn ʿĀṣim; al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad; Ibn Abī Mulaykah; Qatādah; and many others.
Those who transmitted from him include Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, al-Zuhrī, and Qatādah—though they were among his own teachers—as well as Yaḥyā ibn Kathīr, Shuʿbah, Sufyān, Mālik, Maʿmar, ʿAbd al-Wārith, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Muʿtamar ibn Sulaymān, Wuhaib, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Ḥarb, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṭufāwī, Nūḥ ibn Qays al-Ḥuddānī, Hushaym ibn Bashīr, Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī, and a host of others.
He was born the year Ibn ʿAbbās died, 68 AH. He saw Anas ibn Mālik, yet we have found no narration from him, despite their living in the same city and Ayyūb having met him when he was in his early twenties.
I read this before Isḥāq ibn Abī Bakr—Ibn Khalīl informed us, al-Labbān informed us, al-Ḥaddād informed us,