—so it is said (1).
He and Hushaym were the two foremost hadith shaykhs of their age in Baghdad.
Some of his high-isnād reports have reached me.
Scholars differ over the year of his death:
Ali ibn al-Madini, Ibn Saʿd, Khalifah, Muhammad ibn ʿAbbad al-Makki, Ahmad ibn Abi Khaythamah, and others stated that he died in 183 AH, and this is the sound view.
Saʿid ibn ʿUfair and Abu Hassān al-Ziyadi said that he died in 184 AH, at the age of seventy-five. Ibn ʿUfair added that in that very year he travelled to Iraq.
Abu Marwān al-ʿUthmani diverged—and indeed erred—saying, “I heard from Ibrahim ibn Saʿd in 185 AH, and he died after that.”
Abu Bakr al-Khatib said in al-Sābiq wa-l-Lāḥiq:
“Those who narrated from him include Yazid ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Hād—his own teacher—and al-Husayn ibn Sayyār; there are one hundred and twelve years between their deaths. Ibn Sayyār died sometime after 250 AH.”
Furthermore, Layth ibn Saʿd—who was older than Ibrahim ibn Saʿd—transmitted a report from him through an intermediary.