al-Azdī, the client of the household of Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim of Baṣra; nicknamed al-Azraq ("the Blue-Eyed") and al-Ḍarīr ("the Blind"), one of the eminent authorities.
His family came from Sijistān; his grandfather Dirham was captured there and brought to Basra.
He heard ḥadith from: Anas ibn Sīrīn, ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, Abū ʿImrān al-Jawnī, Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Qurashī al-Jumahī, Abū Jamrah al-Ḍubʿī, Thābit al-Bunānī, Budayl ibn Maysarah, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Ṣuhayb, Bishr ibn Ḥarb, Salm ibn Qays al-ʿAlawī, Shuʿayb ibn al-Ḥabḥāb, ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Najūd, ʿĀmir ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Aḥwal, ʿAbbās ibn Farrūkh al-Jurayrī, ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Yazīd al-Makkī, Kathīr ibn Ziyād al-Azdī, Muḥammad ibn Wāsiʿ, Maṭar al-Warrāq, Hārūn ibn Riʾāb, Wāṣil––the client of Abū ʿUyaynah ibn al-Muhallab––Abū al-Tayyāḥ al-Ḍubʿī, Yazīd al-Rishk (1), Isḥāq ibn Suwayd, Jamīl ibn Murrah, Ḥājib ibn al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufrah, al-Zubayr ibn al-Khurrīt, al-Zubayr ibn ʿArabī, al-Ṣaqʿab ibn Zuhayr, Kathīr ibn Shinzīr, Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir, Burd ibn Sinān, Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind, Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, Abū Ḥāzim al-Aʿraj, ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Bakr ibn Anas, and many others.
Those who narrated from him include: Ibrāhīm ibn Abī ʿAblah, Sufyān, and Shuʿbah—who were themselves among his teachers—ʿAbd al-Wārith ibn Saʿīd, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak, Abū al-Nuʿmān ʿĀrim, Musaddad, Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb, ʿUbayd Allah al-Qawārīrī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd ibn Ḥisāb, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī—who regarded him as his most senior teacher—Zakariyyā ibn ʿAdī, Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn al-Ṭabbāʿ, Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd, Sahl ibn ʿUthmān al-ʿAskarī, Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Balkhī the jurist, Dāwūd ibn ʿAmr al-Ḍabbī, Sunayd ibn Dāwūd al-Maṣṣīṣī, Sulaymān ibn Ayyūb Ṣāḥib al-Baṣrī, and Muḥammad ibn