He narrated from his uncle ʿAbd Allāh b. Jarād, from Ruqād b. Rabīʿa, from Kulayb b. Jurayy the Bedouin—claiming that all three were Companions—and from al-Nābigha al-Jaʿdī.

Those who transmitted from him include ʿUmar b. Ismāʿīl b. Mujālid; Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd Allāh, the judge of Damascus; Dāwūd b. Rushayd; Abū Wahb al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik; Hāshim b. Qāsim, both men from Ḥarrān; Ayyūb b. Muḥammad al-Wazzān; and others.

His teknonym was Abū al-Haytham. Destitute, he wandered from district to district living on what he could beg.

Aḥmad al-Abbār said: “I asked al-Wazzān about him. He replied, ‘He was a Bedouin; the people of Ḥarrān wrote his narrations. I once saw a son of his who looked older than he did, and a daughter who seemed to be his mother, so I assumed she was. He said to me, “This is my daughter; she was born after the year 100.”’”

Abū Wahb reported: “I heard him say, ‘I am one hundred and twenty-six and a half years old.’”

Abū Ḥātim related that Abū Mus-hir said: “Yaʿlā came to Damascus. A Bedouin, he first narrated seven reports traced back to ʿAbd Allāh b. Jarād. We said, ‘Perhaps they are sound.’ Then he made them ten, then twenty, and finally forty.

“He was a beggar who asked people for alms.”

Al-Bukhārī remarked, “His ḥadīth is not to be recorded.”

Abū Zurʿa said, “He is not to be trusted.”

Ibn ʿAdī transmitted from Abū Mus-hir that he said: “I asked Yaʿlā, ‘What did your uncle hear from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him?’ He replied, ‘The Compendium of Sufyān al-Thawrī, the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik, and a few assorted points.’”

Ibn Ḥibbān observed, “Fabricated reports were handed to him, and he passed them on without realizing their falsity.”