—that is, Abū Yuḥmad al-Ḥimyari, al-Kalāʿī and later al-Maytamī, from Ḥimṣ—one of the celebrated luminaries.
He was born in 110 AH, as he himself told Yazīd ibn ʿAbd Rabbih al-Jurjusī.
He narrated from Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Alhānī; Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr al-Saksakī; Baḥīr ibn Saʿd; Thawr ibn Yazīd; Bishr ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yasār; Ḥabīb ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Ṭāʾī; Ḥuṣayn ibn Mālik al-Fazārī; al-Sarī ibn Yanʿum al-Jublānī; Ḍubārah ibn Mālik; ʿUthmān ibn Zufar; ʿUtbah ibn Abī Ḥakīm; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿIrq al-Yaḥṣubī; Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd al-Zubaydī; Muslim ibn Ziyād; Yūnus ibn Yazīd al-Aylī; al-Waḍīn ibn ʿAṭāʾ; Yazīd ibn ʿAwf; Abū Bakr ibn Abī Maryam; Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān; many others besides them, and also from al-Awzāʿī, Shuʿbah, Mālik, and Ibn al-Mubārak.
His isnād descends as far as Yazīd ibn Hārūn and his contemporaries, and he even reported from his own student, Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh.
He was a vast reservoir of knowledge, yet he marred this by narrating extensively from weak transmitters and ordinary folk, collecting reports from anyone who happened to cross his path.
Those who narrated from him include Shuʿbah, the two Ḥammāds, al-Awzāʿī, and Ibn Jurayj—these being among his own teachers—together with Ibn al-Mubārak, Yazīd ibn Hārūn, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, and Wakīʿ—his peers—as well as Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, who was older than he; Ḥaywah ibn Shurayḥ; Yazīd ibn ʿAbd Rabbih; Asad ibn Mūsā; Dāwūd ibn Rushayd; Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh; ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr; Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād; Hishām ibn ʿAmmār; Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā al-Farrāʾ; Suwayd ibn Saʿīd; ʿAmrū ibn ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd and his brother Yaḥyā; Abū al-Taqī Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik; Muḥammad ibn Muṣaffā; ʿĪsā ibn Aḥmad al-ʿAsqalanī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥanān; and Muhannā ibn Yaḥyā.