and ʿUtaybah, Ḥumaydah ibn al-Shamardal, Ismaʿil ibn Umayyah, Thābit ibn ʿUbayd, Ajlaḥ ibn ʿAbd Allah, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿd ibn Zurārah, Dāʾūd ibn ʿAlī—the provincial governor—and his nephew ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿĪsā, along with others besides them.
Among those who transmitted from him were: Shuʿbah, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Zāʾidah, al-Thawrī, Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ, and Ḥamzah al-Zayyāt, who also recited the Qur’an to him.
He had committed the Book of Allah to memory. He recited it before his brother ʿĪsā, then presented his reading to al-Shaʿbī—who had learned it from ʿAlqamah—and he likewise recited to al-Minhāl, who had taken it from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr.
Others who narrated from him include: Aḥwaṣ ibn Jawwāb, ʿAlī ibn Hāshim ibn al-Barīd, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah, ʿAmr ibn Abī Qays al-Rāzī, ʿUqbah ibn Khālid, ʿAbd Allah ibn Dāʾūd al-Khuraybī, ʿAlī ibn Mushir, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus, Muḥammad ibn Rabīʿah, ʿUbayd Allah ibn Mūsā, Abū Nuʿaym, Wakīʿ, ʿĪsā ibn al-Mukhtār ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, and many others.
In the field of jurisprudence he was regarded as a peer of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah.
Aḥmad said: “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd deemed Ibn Abī Laylā weak.” He also remarked: “His memory was poor and his ḥadith were inconsistent; his fiqh is dearer to us than his ḥadith.” He further added: “In the narrations from ʿAṭāʾ he makes the most mistakes.”
Aḥmad ibn Zuhayr related from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, who said: “He is not like that (i.e., not so weak).”
Abū Dāwūd said: “I heard Shuʿbah say, ‘I have never seen anyone with a worse memory than Ibn Abī Laylā.’”
Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah reported from Shuʿbah: “I received some ḥadith from Ibn Abī Laylā and found them inverted.”
Abū Isḥāq al-Jūzajānī transmitted from Aḥmad ibn Yūnus, who said: “Zāʾidah would not narrate from Ibn Abī Laylā; he had abandoned his ḥadith.”
Abū Ḥātim relayed from Aḥmad ibn Yūnus: “Zāʾidah mentioned Ibn Abī Laylā and said, ‘He was the most knowledgeable jurist on earth.’ And Ibn…"