and Rabiʿah ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, and their contemporaries.

He studied the Qur’an under Shaybah ibn Niṣāḥ; later he submitted his recitation to the Imām Nāfiʿ and to Sulaymān ibn Muslim ibn Jammāz. He excelled in elocution, assumed the foremost seat for teaching hadith and Qur’anic recitation, and some referred to him by the kunya Abū Ibrāhīm. In his day he was the principal Qur’an teacher of Medina.

It is also said that he learned directly from Abū Jaʿfar Yazīd ibn al-Qaʿqāʿ. Toward the end of his life he moved to Baghdad, where he broadcast his knowledge.

Among those who learned recitation from him were Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Kisāʾī, Abū ʿUbayd, Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī, Abū ʿUmar al-Dūrī, and others.

Those who transmitted from him include Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd, ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr, Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Bīkandī, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Harawī, Dāwūd ibn ʿAmr al-Ḍabbī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ al-Dūlābī, ʿĪsā ibn Sulaymān al-Shayzarī (1), Abū Hammām al-Walīd ibn Shujāʿ, Muḥammad ibn Zunbūr, and many others.

Yahya ibn Maʿīn said, “Trustworthy, reliable, rarely mistaken; he and his two brothers, Muḥammad and Kathīr, are steadfast in their religion.” (2)

This assessment was reported by Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah from Yahya.

It was also said that he was the last person to narrate from Shaybah.