al-Ṣawwāf, Ḥanẓalah al-Sadūsī, Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ, Rūḥ ibn al-Qāsim, Sulaymān al-Taymī, ʿĀṣim ibn Sulaymān, ʿAwf ibn Abī Jamīlah, Muḥammad ibn al-Zubayr al-Ḥanẓalī, Burd ibn Sinān al-Dimashqī—who had taken up residence in Basra—Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥakam al-Bunānī, Manṣūr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ashall, al-Walīd ibn Abī Hishām, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAtīq, Yaḥyā ibn Maymūn the perfumer, Yaḥyā ibn Yazīd al-Hunāʾī, Abū Rayḥānah al-Saʿdī, and many others.
Narrators who transmitted from him include: Ibn Jurayj and Shuʿbah—both of whom were actually his teachers—Ḥammād ibn Zayd, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Abū Khaythamah, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Fallās, ʿAmr ibn Rāfiʿ al-Qazwīnī, Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ, Ziyād ibn Ayyūb, ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr, Aḥmad ibn Ḥarb, Muḥammad ibn Bashshār, Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī, Naṣr ibn ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah, Muʾammal ibn Hishām, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muʿādh, Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ, Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Zaʿfarānī, and a great many others. The last of them was Mūsā ibn Sahl ibn Kathīr al-Washshāʾ, who remained alive until the year 278 AH.
He was a jurist, an imām, a muftī, and one of the foremost authorities in hadith. He used to say, “Whoever calls me ‘Ibn ʿUlayyah’ has backbitten me.”
I say: This was a lapse in character—may Allah have mercy on him—something that gained the upper hand over him; what remedy is there? The Prophet ﷺ called more than one of his Companions by a name linked to their mother, such as “al-Zubayr, son of Ṣafiyyah” and “ʿAmmār, son of Sumayyah.”
Muʾammal ibn Hishām said: I heard Ismāʿīl say, “I met Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir and heard four hadiths from him.”
I add: He was Ismāʿīl’s senior-most teacher.