He was born during the caliphate of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
He transmitted aḥādīth from: Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal, Sulaymān al-Taymī, Abū Mālik al-Ashjaʿī, ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī, Saʿd ibn ʿUbayd, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAmr al-Fuqaymī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī, Hāshim ibn Hāshim ibn ʿUtbah, Yazīd ibn Kaysān, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, al-Aʿmash, Bahz ibn Ḥakīm, Ayman ibn Nābil, Rishdīn ibn Kurayb, Ṭalḥah ibn Yaḥyā, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṭāʾifī, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Aṣamm, ʿAtāʾ ibn ʿAjlān, Muḥammad ibn Sūqah, Ibn Isḥāq, Hilāl ibn ʿĀmir, and many others.
He was a tireless voyager in pursuit of hadith.
Those who reported from him include: al-Humaydī, Zakariyyā ibn ʿAdī, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Ibn Rāhawayh, Abū Khaythamah, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Ibn Numayr, Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ, Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Bīkandī, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, Duḥaym, ʿAmr al-Nāqid, Abū Kurayb, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-ʿAdanī, Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī, Muḥammad ibn Hishām ibn Malās, Abū ʿAmmār al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥurayth, Ziyād ibn Ayyūb, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah, Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Suwayd ibn Saʿīd, ʿAmr ibn Rāfiʿ al-Qazwīnī, ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān, Kathīr ibn ʿUbayd, and many others besides.
Today his narrations are available with a high chain of transmission in the booklet of Ibn ʿArafah.
Abū Bakr al-Asadī reported from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who said, “He is reliable and a ḥāfiẓ.”
Abū Dāwūd likewise transmitted from Aḥmad: “How remarkable was his memory! He had mastered his reports.”