He was al-ʿAwdhī, al-Muḥallimī, and al-Baṣrī.
The Banū ʿAwdh are a branch of al-Azd, and he was a freedman attached to them. His father worked as a butcher in Basra.
He was born sometime after 80 AH.
He narrated ḥadith from al-Ḥasan (al-Baṣrī), Anas ibn Sīrīn, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, Nāfiʿ the freedman of Ibn ʿUmar, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, Abū Jamrah al-Ḍubaʿī, Abū ʿImrān al-Jawnī, Abū al-Tayyāḥ, Thābit al-Bunānī, ʿAlī ibn Zayd, Qatādah, Zayd ibn Aslam, Isḥāq ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Ṭalḥah, Ibn Juhādah, Shaqīq Abū Layth, Maṭar al-Warrāq, and many others.
Chains reaching him include transmitters such as Ziyād ibn Saʿd and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah; their reports from him appear in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd and of al-Nasāʾī.
Those who narrated from him include Sufyān al-Thawrī—despite being his senior— Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn ʿUlayyah, Wakīʿ, Yazīd, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥanafī, al-Muqriʾ, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rajāʾ al-Ghuddānī, Abū Nuʿaym, Muḥammad ibn Sinān al-ʿAwqī, Abū al-Walīd al-Ṭayālisī, ʿAffān, ʿAmr ibn ʿĀṣim, Ḥabbān ibn Hilāl, Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl, Abū Dāwūd, Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd, Abū Salamah al-Tabūdhakī, Shaybān ibn Farrūkh, Hudbah ibn Khālid, Sahl ibn Bakkār, Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-ʿAbdī, Abū ʿUmar al-Ḥawḍī, and many others besides them.
Ibn ʿAsākir informed us; Abū Rūḥ informed us; Tamīm informed us; Abū Saʿd informed us; Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥīrī informed us; Abū Yaʿlā informed us; Hudbah narrated to us; Hammām narrated to us; Abū Jamrah al-Ḍubaʿī narrated to us, from Abū Bakr, from his father: that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Whoever performs the two cool prayers shall enter Paradise.” (1)