He was also called Abū Bukayr.
His teknonym was Abū Bakr al-Kūfī, nicknamed al-Ḥammāl; he was the father of Bakr and ʿAbd Allah.
He transmitted reports from: Hishām ibn ʿUrwah; Sulaymān al-Aʿmash; Ṭalḥah ibn Yaḥyā; Zakariyyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq—of whom he narrated a great many traditions; ʿUmar ibn Dharr; Kahmas ibn al-Ḥasan; Maṭar ibn Maymūn al-Muḥāribī; al-Naḍr Abū ʿUmar al-Khazzāz; al-Sarī ibn Ismāʿīl; Abū Khaldah Khālid ibn Dīnār; Asbāṭ ibn Naṣr; ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥazawwar; Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq; Abū Kaʿb, the dealer in silk (1); Ḥajjāj ibn Abī Zaynab; Shuʿbah; and many others.
Those who narrated from him include: Saʿdawayh; Ibn Numayr; Isḥāq ibn Mūsā al-Khaṭamī; Abū Khaythamah; Abū Kurayb; Hannād; Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn; Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā; ʿUbayd ibn Yaʿīsh; Abū Saʿīd al-Ashajj; Sufyān ibn Wakīʿ; ʿUqbah ibn Mukram al-Ḍabbī; Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Karāmah; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān; Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-ʿAṭāridī; and many others besides.
ʿAbbās reported from Ibn Maʿīn: “He was truthful.”
Muḍar ibn Muḥammad and ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd likewise narrated from Ibn Maʿīn: “Reliable.”
ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd also said on another occasion: “There is no harm in him.”
Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Junayd transmitted from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: “He was reliable and truthful, except that he associated with Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī and was well-to-do. Someone said to him, ‘They accuse him of heresy for such-and-such a reason,’ whereupon he replied, ‘That is a lie.’ Then he added…"