, Salih; Hisham ibn ‘Urwah; Abu Ishaq al-Shaybani; Sulayman al-A‘mash; Isma‘il ibn Abi Khalid; Ibn Jurayj; Mis‘ar; Sufyan; al-Hasan ibn ‘Ubayd Allah; Abu Malik al-Ashja‘i; al-Mukhtar ibn Fulful; Yazid ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Burdah; ‘Asim ibn Kulayb; Layth ibn Abi Sulaym; Yazid ibn Abi Ziyad; Ibn ‘Ajlan; Yahya ibn Sa‘id al-Ansari; Ibn Ishaq; and many others.
He studied Qur’an recitation with Nafi‘ and was counted among the imams of the religion.
Those who narrated from him include Malik—who was in fact one of his own teachers—‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak, Yahya ibn Adam, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Yahya ibn Ma‘in, Abu Bakr and ‘Uthman, the two sons of Abu Shaybah, Hannad, Abu Kurayb, Abu Sa‘id al-Ashaj, al-Hasan ibn ‘Arafah, Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Jabbar al-‘Ataridi, and many others.
Harun al-Rashid summoned him to Baghdad with the intention of appointing him judge of Kufah, but he refused.
Bishr ibn al-Harith said, “No one has ever drunk from the Euphrates and remained unscathed except ‘Abd Allah ibn Idris.” (1)
Ahmad ibn Hanbal remarked, “Ibn Idris was peerless, a class of his own.” (2)
Ya‘qub ibn Shaybah said, “He was devout and virtuous. In many of his fatwas and legal positions he followed the method of the people of Medina, contrary to the Kufans, and there was a bond of friendship between him and Malik.
He then added, ‘It has also been said that everything Malik relates in—’