and then to the Sacred Sanctuary of Allah—exalted be He.
He was born toward the end of the era of the younger Companions. He travelled in pursuit of knowledge and studied under: Ādam ibn ʿAlī, Thābit al-Bunānī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Rufayʿ, Simāk ibn Ḥarb, Abū Ḥuṣayn, Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Jumaḥī—the companion of Abū Hurayrah—Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir, Abū Jamrah al-Ḍubaʿī, Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, Abū al-Zubayr, ʿĀṣim ibn Bahdalah, ʿĀṣim ibn Sulaymān, Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Muslim al-Khurasānī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Ṣuhayb, Maṭar al-Warrāq, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, and many others.
Those who narrated from him include: Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym—his own teacher—Abū Ḥanīfah, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Kathīr, Ibn al-Mubārak, Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sulamī, Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Razīn, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, Muḥammad ibn Sābiq, Maʿn al-Qazzāz, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bukayr, Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḍarīs, Abū Ḥudhayfah al-Nahdī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sallām al-Jumaḥī, Muḥammad ibn Sinān al-ʿAwqī, and many others besides them.
He was declared reliable by Ibn al-Mubārak, Aḥmad, Abū Ḥātim, and others.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad reported from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: “There is no problem with him.”
Abū Ḥātim also said: “His hadith are sound; he is truthful.”
ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd remarked: “The leading imams have always coveted his narrations, desired them eagerly, and considered him trustworthy.”