al-Kalbī; Saʿīd ibn Ṭarīf al-Iskāf; Ismāʿīl ibn Muslim al-Makkī; Bashshār ibn Kidām; Jaʿfar ibn Burqān; Juwaybir ibn Saʿīd; Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʿah; al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAmr al-Fuqaymī; Khālid ibn Ilyās; Saʿd ibn Saʿīd; ʿAmr ibn Maymūn ibn Mihrān; Abū Burdah ʿAmr ibn Yazīd; Qanān ibn ʿAbd Allāh; Layth ibn Abī Sulaym, and a great many others.
Those who transmitted from him include: his son Ibrāhīm; Ibn Jurayj—his own teacher; al-Aʿmash—his teacher; Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān; Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā; ʿAmr ibn ʿAwn; Aḥmad ibn Yūnus; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; Ibn Maʿīn; Isḥāq; Abū Kurayb; the two sons of Abī Shaybah; ʿAlī; Abū Khaythamah; Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr; Ibn Numayr; Hannād; Qutaybah; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭanafisī; Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī; Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ; ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb; his brother Aḥmad ibn Ḥarb; Aḥmad ibn Sinān; al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah; al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Zaʿfarānī; Sahl ibn Zanjalah; Ṣadaqah ibn al-Faḍl; Saʿdān ibn Naṣr; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭarsūsī; ʿAlī ibn Ishkāb; Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥassānī; Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Aḥmasī; Muḥammad ibn Ṭarīf; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mukḥarramī; Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā al-ʿAnazī; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Abī ʿUmar al-ʿAdanī; Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī, and many more—the last of them being Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-ʿAṭāridī.
Aḥmad was asked about Abū Muʿāwiyah and Jarīr in their transmission from al-Aʿmash, and he placed Abū Muʿāwiyah ahead of Jarīr.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad reported from his father: whenever Abū Muʿāwiyah was questioned about al-Aʿmash’s traditions he would say, “By Allah, al-Aʿmash’s ḥadith has become in my mouth like bitter colocynth—or even more bitter—because of how often it has come back to me.”
My father then added, “Abū Muʿāwiyah—when it comes to narrations other than those of…"