He narrated from Ibn Shihāb, Nāfiʿ the freedman of Ibn ʿUmar, al-Qāsim, and ʿIkrimah,
and also from his own brother, Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, ʿUmārah ibn Ghaziyyah, ʿUmar the freedman of Ghufrah, and others.
Those who reported from him include: al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb, Nāfiʿ ibn Yazīd, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, al-Awzāʿī, Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim, Ibn al-Mubārak, Baqiyyah, Ibn Wahb, Shabīb ibn Saʿīd al-Ḥabaṭī, Rishdīn ibn Saʿd, Ṭalḥah ibn Yaḥyā, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar al-Numayrī, al-Qāsim ibn Mabrūr, Mufaḍḍal ibn Faḍālah, ʿUthmān ibn al-Ḥakam al-Judhāmī, Abū Ṣafwān ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd, Abū Ḍamrah al-Laythī, Ayyūb ibn Suwayd al-Ramlī, Sulaymān ibn Bilāl, Muḥammad ibn Fulayḥ, Muḥammad ibn Bakr al-Bursānī, ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar ibn Fāris, his nephew ʿAnbasah ibn Khālid al-Aylī, and many others besides them.
He kept company with al-Zuhrī for twelve years—some said fourteen—and narrated copiously from him; he is regarded as one of al-Zuhrī’s foremost pupils.
Ibn al-Mubārak used to say, “His notebook is sound,” and Ibn Mahdī said the same.
ʿAbdān related from Ibn al-Mubārak that he said: “Whenever I examine the ḥadīths of Maʿmar and Yūnus I am impressed, as though the two had come forth from a single lamp niche.”
ʿAbd al-Razzāq reported from Ibn al-Mubārak: “I have not seen anyone who transmits more from al-Zuhrī than Maʿmar—save that Yūnus is more accurate in preserving the musnad material.”
In another version he said: “None except Yūnus, for he copied the books precisely.”
Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf narrated from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal that Wakīʿ said, “I saw Yūnus ibn Yazīd, and his memory was poor.” Aḥmad added, “Wakīʿ heard three ḥadīths from him.”
Ḥanbal reported: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh say, “No one knows al-Zuhrī’s ḥadīths better than Maʿmar—apart from Yūnus al-Aylī, for he wrote everything down there.”
Abū Bakr al-Athram said: ʿAbd Allāh told us that ʿAbd al-Razzāq related from Ibn al-Mubārak: “I have not seen anyone transmit more from al-Zuhrī than Maʿmar—except for Yūnus, for he wrote every…"