around the year 100 AH.
He narrated ḥadith from: his own father; Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Jumaḥī—the companion of Abū Hurayrah; Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī; Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir; Mālik ibn Dīnār; Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī; Sulaymān al-Aʿmash; Ibn ʿAjlān; and Muqātil ibn Ḥayyān.
Among those who transmitted from him were his close companion Sufyān al-Thawrī; Shaqīq al-Balkhī; Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd; Ḍamrah ibn Rabīʿah; Muḥammad ibn Ḥimyar; Khalaf ibn Tamīm; Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firyābī; Ibrāhīm ibn Bashshār al-Khurasānī—his servant; Sahl ibn Hāshim; and ʿUtbah ibn al-Sakan.
Al-Awzāʿī and Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī also cited him.
Al-Bukhārī said: Qutaybah told me, “Ibrāhīm ibn Adham is a Tamīmī; he reports from Manṣūr.” He added, “He is also called al-ʿIjlī.”
Ibn Maʿīn remarked, “He belongs to the tribe of ʿIjl.”
Al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ghallābī noted that he fled from Abū Muslim, the leader of the Abbasid daʿwah.
Al-Nasāʾī said: “He is reliable, trustworthy, and one of the ascetics.”
Al-Faḍl ibn Mūsā related: “Ibrāhīm ibn Adham’s father and his wife performed the ḥajj, and while in Mecca she gave birth to Ibrāhīm.”
Yūnus al-Balkhī recounted: “Ibrāhīm ibn Adham was of noble lineage. His father possessed great wealth, many servants, riding animals, spare mounts, and hunting falcons (1). One day, while Ibrāhīm was out hunting, urging his horse on, a voice called to him from above: ‘O Ibrāhīm! What is this frivolity*? ﴿Did you think We had created you in vain?﴾ (al-Muʾminūn 23:115). Fear Allah and prepare provisions for the Day of Poverty.’”
So he dismounted and renounced the world.
In al-Qushayrī’s Risālah it is stated: He was from the district of Balkh, of royal descent. He had flushed out a fox or a hare when a crier called to him, “Is it for this—”