He was born a little after 120 AH.
He heard hadith from Hishām ibn Ḥassān, Jaʿfar ibn Burqān, Ḥanẓalah ibn Abī Sufyān, Ibn Jurayj, Thawr ibn Yazīd, Sayf ibn Sulaymān al-Makkī, Aflah ibn Ḥumayd, Mūsā ibn ʿUbaydah, al-Awzāʿī, Ibn Abī ʿArūbah, ʿUmar ibn Dharr, Muhill ibn Muḥriz al-Ḍabbī, al-Thawrī, Misʿar ibn Kidām, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Jaʿfar, Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq, Mālik ibn Mighwal, and a host of others of their rank.
He stood among the foremost imams in both knowledge and practice; few eyes have seen his like.
Those who transmitted from him include Mūsā ibn Aʿyan, Ibn al-Mubārak, Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd, Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ—men of his own generation—together with Bishr ibn al-Ḥārith, al-Ḥasan ibn Bishr, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Harawī, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Warkānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmmār al-Mawṣilī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Khidāsh, Muḥammad ibn Abī Samīnah, Masʿūd ibn Juwayriyah, Hishām ibn Bahrām al-Madāʾinī, Abū Hāshim Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Mawṣilī, his son Aḥmad ibn al-Muʿāfā, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Fulayḥ al-Makkī, Mūsā ibn Marwān al-Raqqī, and many others.
The ḥāfiẓ Yazīd ibn Muḥammad al-Azdī devoted twenty folios to Muʿāfā’s biography in his “History of Mosul.” Among what he recorded is the following:
“Mūsā ibn Hārūn al-Zayyāt narrated to us: Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān related to us; I heard Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd al-Hudhdānī say: ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus narrated to us:
‘Al-Awzāʿī came out to us while we were in Beirut—I, Muʿāfā ibn ʿImrān, and Mūsā ibn Aʿyan were present—and he was carrying the book al-Sunan by Abū Khalatqamur. He remarked, “Had this error occurred in an entire community, it would have overwhelmed them with error.”’ ”
Yazīd ibn Muḥammad then added: “Muʿāfā authored works on zuhd (asceticism), al-Sunan, trials and tribulations, adab (belles-lettres), and other subjects.”