He transmitted ḥadith from Thābit al-Bunnānī, Sayyār ibn Salāmah, and a number of others. Those who narrated from him include Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl, ʿAffān, Muslim, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ghiyāth, Musaddad, and many more.
39 – Abū ʿAwānah al-Waḍḍāḥ ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Wāsiṭī (ʿ)
He is the Imām, ḥāfiẓ, and firmly reliable authority, the ḥadith master of Basra: al-Waḍḍāḥ ibn ʿAbd Allah, the freedman of Yazīd ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Yashkurī, originally from Wāsiṭ and by trade a cloth merchant. Al-Waḍḍāḥ had been taken captive in Jurjān. He was born in a year just after 90 AH. He met al-Ḥasan and Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn.
He related ḥadith from al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah, Ziyād ibn ʿIlāqah, Qatādah, Simāk ibn Ḥarb, al-Aswad ibn Qays, Ismāʿīl al-Suddī, ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, ʿĀṣim ibn Kulayb, Abū al-Zubayr, Ḥuṣayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Yaʿlā ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir, ʿUmar ibn Abī Salamah, Abū Isḥāq, Mughīrah ibn Miqsam, Manṣūr ibn Zādhān the ascetic, Abū Bishr Jaʿfar ibn Iyās, ʿUmar ibn Abī Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Abū Mālik al-Ashjaʿī, Ibrāhīm ibn Muhājir, Saʿīd ibn Masrūq al-Thawrī, Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād, ʿĀṣim al-Ahwal, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr, Saʿd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Zuhrī, Dāʾūd al-Awdī, and many others besides.
He was regarded as one of the pillars of ḥadith scholarship.