of the ḥadith masters, Abū Saʿīd al-ʿAnbarī—others say al-Azdī— their freedman, a Basran known as al-Luʾluʾī.
He was born in 135 AH, as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal stated.
He entered this discipline when he was little more than ten years old.
Among those from whom he heard ḥadith were: Ayman ibn Nābil; ʿUmar ibn Abī Zāʾida; Muʿāwiya ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Ḥaḍramī; Hishām ibn Abī ʿAbd Allāh ad-Dastawāʾī; Ismāʿīl ibn Muslim al-ʿAbdī, the judge of Jazīrat Qays; Abū Khalda Khālid ibn Dīnār; Sufyān; Shuʿbah; al-Masʿūdī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Budayl ibn Warqāʾ; Abū Yaʿlā ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ath-Thaqafī; ʿAbd al-Jalīl ibn ʿAṭiyya al-Baṣrī; ʿIkrima ibn ʿAmmār; ʿAlī ibn Masʿada al-Bāhilī; ʿImrān al-Qaṭṭān; al-Muthannā ibn Saʿīd aḍ-Ḍubāʿī; Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq; Abū Ḥurra Wāṣil ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; Ḥammād ibn Salama; Abān ibn Yazīd; Mālik ibn Anas; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Mājishūn; and many others besides.
Those who transmitted from him include: Ibn al-Mubārak and Ibn Wahb—both of whom were among his teachers—together with ʿAlī, Yaḥyā, Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Ibn Abī Shayba, Bundār, Abū Khaythama, Aḥmad ibn Sinān, al-Qawārīrī, Abū ʿUbayd, Abū Thawr, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hāshim, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar Rustah, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, Hārūn ibn Sulaymān al-Aṣbahānī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥārithī (Kurbuzān), Muḥammad ibn Māhān (Zanbaqa), and a multitude whose number cannot be tallied.