He was born in 108 AH.
When he was already advanced in years he heard ḥadith from ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal, al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Burayd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Burdah, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, Sulaymān al-Aʿmash, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, Ḥajjāj ibn Dīnār, and others of their generation.
Those who transmitted from him include Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ al-Dūlābī, Abū al-Rabīʿ al-Zahrānī, Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān Luwayn, and a number of others.
Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn’s verdicts concerning him varied: at one time he called him “trustworthy,” at another he declared him weak, and elsewhere he said, “there is no harm in him.”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “His ḥadith is almost acceptable.”
Al-Maymūnī relates: “I said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal], ‘How do you rate him?’ He replied, ‘As for the well-known reports he narrates, in those he is nearly acceptable, but the heart does not feel at ease with him. He is a shaykh not known for diligent study.’ ”
Al-Khaṭīb states in his History: “Ismāʿīl ibn Zakariyyā ibn Murrah, Abū Ziyād al-Khulqānī, a client of Banū Asad ibn Khuzaymah, from Kūfah, nicknamed Shuqoṣā. He later settled in Baghdad.”
Al-ʿUqaylī said: “Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad narrated to us, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Junayd told me, Aḥmad ibn al-Walīd ibn Abān narrated to us, my uncle Ibrāhīm told me: I heard Ismāʿīl al-Khulqānī—Shuqoṣā—say, ‘The One who called out from the side of the Mount to His servant was ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.’
“I also heard him say, ‘He is the First and the Last—ʿAlī.’ ”
Its chain of transmission is obscure, so perhaps that Ismāʿīl was some other heretic, not al-Khulqānī.
Al-Khulqānī died in 173 AH; another opinion says 174. He lived sixty-five years.