He also narrated from both of them, and from Ibn ʿAjlān, Thawr ibn Yazīd, Ibn Jurayj, Marwān ibn Janāḥ, al-Awzāʿī, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Maryam al-Ghassānī, ʿUfair ibn Maʿdān, ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀtikah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Tamīm, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zabr, Sulaymān ibn Mūsā, Ismāʿīl ibn Rāfiʿ, Ḥanẓalah ibn Abī Sufyān, Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, Shaybah ibn al-Aḥnaf, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥassān al-Kinānī, Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān, Hishām ibn Ḥassān, ʿAbd al-Razzāq ibn ʿUmar al-Thaqafī, Muʿān ibn Rifāʿah, Shaybān the Grammarian, Sufyān al-Thawrī, Mālik, al-Layth, Ibn Luhayʿah, al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, Yazīd ibn Abī Maryam, Saʿīd ibn Bashīr, and many others.
He traveled widely in pursuit of knowledge, composed several works, took up the office of imām, and his name became well-known.
He was a great repository of learning—trustworthy and a ḥāfiẓ—but his practice of tadlīs (concealing the identity of one’s source) was unsound. Therefore, whenever he explicitly says “ḥaddathanā” (“he related to us”), his report is accepted as proof.
In his own right he was more reliable and more knowledgeable than Baqiyyah.
Narrators who reported from him include al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd—both of whom were his teachers—ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb, Abū Mus-hir, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Duḥaym, Abū Khaythamah, Isḥāq ibn Mūsā, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭanafisī, Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī, Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, Muḥammad ibn ʿĀʾidh, Dāwūd ibn Rushayd, Suwayd ibn Saʿīd, ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān, Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā, Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, Abū Qudāmah al-Sarakhsī, Kathīr ibn ʿUbayd, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maymūn al-Iskandarānī, Yaḥyā ibn Mūsā Khatt, Abū ʿUmayr ibn al-Naḥḥās, Muḥammad ibn Muṣaffā, Mūsā ibn ʿĀmir al-Murrī, Maḥmūd ibn Ghailān, and many others besides them, the last of whom to pass away was: