I say: He was born during the caliphate of Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
He transmitted hadith from Hisham ibn ʿUrwah, al-Aʿmash, Abu Hayyan al-Taymi, Ismaʿil ibn Abi Khalid, Zakariya ibn Abi Zaʾidah, ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿUmar, Mujammaʿ ibn Yahya, Muhammad ibn ʿAmr, Salam ibn Abi ʿAmrah, Hajjaj al-Sawwaf, Hajjaj ibn Dinar, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, Haniʾ ibn Haniʾ al-Juhani, Ibn Abi ʿArubah, Shuʿbah, Sufyan, Misʿar, and many others.
He did not regard it beneath him to narrate from Ishaq ibn Sulayman al-Darimi.
Those who narrated from him include: Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn—his close companion—ʿAli ibn al-Madini, Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah and his brother ʿUthman, Ibn Numayr, Abu Kurayb, Abu Saʿid al-Ashajj, Harun al-Hammal, Ahmad ibn al-Furat, ʿAbd ibn Humayd, Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Sufi, Ahmad ibn Sulayman al-Ruhawi, al-Hasan ibn ʿAli ibn ʿAffan, Muhammad ibn ʿAsim, ʿAbbas al-Duri, and others.
Yahya ibn Maʿin and several others declared him reliable.
Abu ʿUbayd al-Ajurri said: “I asked Abu Dawud about Muhammad ibn Bishr’s hearing from Ibn Abi ʿArubah, and he replied, ‘He was the most accurate memorizer in Kufah.’ ”
Al-Kudaymi relates from Abu Nuʿaym, who said: “When we went out in the funeral procession of Misʿar, I lengthened my stride, thinking to myself, ‘People will come to me and ask about Misʿar’s hadith.’ Then Muhammad ibn Bishr al-ʿAbdi reviewed Misʿar’s traditions with me and presented seventy narrations unfamiliar to me; I possessed only one of them.”
Al-Bukhari and others said: He died in the year 203 AH. (1)