Those who transmitted ḥadith from him include: Hisham ibn Abi ʿAbd Allah ad-Dastuwaʾi—though he was Abu ʿAwānah’s senior—ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn Mahdī, Ḥabbān ibn Hilāl, ʿAffān ibn Muslim, Khalaf ibn Hishām, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Muḥammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Muqaddam, Shaybān ibn Farrūkh, Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd, Abū al-Walīd aṭ-Ṭayālisī, Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, ʿAmr ibn ʿAwn, Muḥammad ibn al-Minhāl al-Ḍarīr, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Ḥarrānī, and many others besides.

Those who narrated from him most frequently were his son-in-law Yaḥyā ibn Ḥammād, Abū Kāmil al-Jahdarī, Abū al-Rabīʿ az-Zahrānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd ibn Ḥisāb, Musaddad, Luwayn, and—last of them—al-Haytham ibn Sahl.

ʿAffān said, “In our estimation, Abu ʿAwānah’s reports are sounder than Shuʿbah’s.”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal remarked, “His written copy is reliable; but when he narrates from memory he may sometimes slip.”

ʿAffān ibn Muslim added, “Abu ʿAwānah possessed a sound manuscript, was firmly reliable, and his copy contained abundant consonantal pointing and diacritical marks.”

Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān said, “How closely his ḥadith resemble those of Sufyān and Shuʿbah!”

ʿAffān further related, “I heard Shuʿbah say, ‘If Abu ʿAwānah tells you something on the authority of Abu Hurayrah, then accept it as true.’ ”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAdī noted, “His patron Yazīd offered him a choice between freedom and devoting himself to writing ḥadith, and he chose the writing of ḥadith.”

His patron also entrusted him with the business trade. A beggar came to him and said, “Give me two dirhams, for I will benefit you.” So he gave them to him, and the beggar then went round to the leading men