He narrated from Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, al-Jurayrī, Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind, Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūba, their peers, and those who came after them.
Among those who transmitted from him were Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, ʿAmrū ibn ʿAlī, Muḥammad ibn Bashshār, Naṣr ibn ʿAlī, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Zimmānī, and several others.
Yahya ibn Maʿīn said, “Reliable.”
ʿAyyāsh ibn al-Walīd al-Raqqām (1) reported, “ʿAbd al-Aʿlā Abū Muḥammad and Abū Hammām narrated to us,”—indicating that he was known by two kunyahs.
Ibn Saʿd, however, remarked, “He was not strong.”
I say: Rather, he was truthful and sound in ḥadīth, though he was accused of Qadarite leanings; Allah knows best.
He died in Shaʿbān of the year 189 AH, at about seventy years of age.
Bundār said, “By Allah, ʿAbd al-Aʿlā ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā did not know which of his two sides was longer, or which of his two legs was longer.”
I say: It is established that his narrations fall within the category of ṣaḥīḥ, though in strength they do not reach the rank of Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān and Ghundar.