He is also referred to as al-Aslamī, al-Madanī, a hadith master and one of the leading authorities of tradition, counted among the freedmen of the household of Zayd ibn al-Khattāb.
His given name was ʿAbd al-Malik, but the sobriquet “Fulayḥ” so predominated that the personal name was virtually forgotten.
He was born in the closing days of the Companions and was only a little older than Mālik.
He narrated from Ḍamra ibn Saʿīd, Saʿīd ibn al-Ḥārith al-Anṣārī, Nāfiʿ, al-Zuhrī, Nuʿaym al-Mujmir, ʿĀmir ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr, Hilāl ibn Abī Maymūna, ʿAbbās ibn Sahl ibn Saʿd, Rabīʿa al-Raʾy, Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAjlān, Abū Ṭuwāla, Suhayl ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ, Hishām ibn ʿUrwa, Abū Ḥāzim al-Aʿraj, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Taymī, Sālim Abū al-Naḍr, Zayd ibn Aslam, Ayyūb ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, and others.
Those who transmitted from him include Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn Wahb, Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī, Yūnus ibn Muḥammad al-Muʾaddib, Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī, Abū Tumayla al-Marwazī, Zayd ibn al-Ḥubāb, ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar ibn Fāris, al-Haytham ibn Jamīl, Shurayḥ ibn al-Nuʿmān, Muḥammad ibn Sinān al-ʿAwqī, al-Muʿāfā ibn Sulaymān, Muḥammad ibn Abān al-Wāsiṭī, Muḥammad ibn Bakkār ibn al-Rayyān, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Warkānī, Yaḥyā al-Wuḥāḍī, Abū al-Rabīʿ al-Zahrānī, and many others.
Among his own teachers, Zayd ibn Abī Unaysa and Ziyād ibn Saʿd—who was his senior—also reported from him.
His traditions are found in the six canonical collections both as independent chains and as corroborating reports, although other narrators are stronger than he is.