He transmitted from Abū Zurʿah Yaḥyā ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Saybānī, Ibn Jurayj, al-Awzāʿī, Yūnus ibn Yazīd, Usāmah ibn Zayd al-Laythī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir, and several others.
Those who narrated from him include Abū Ṭāhir Aḥmad ibn al-Sarraḥ, Duḥaym, Kathīr ibn ʿUbayd, al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān al-Murādī, Baḥr ibn Naṣr, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, and others.
He had a poor memory and was lenient.
ʿAbbās reported from Yaḥyā: “He is nothing; he steals ḥadīth.” (1)
Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh said: “I asked Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn about him, and he replied, ‘He is nothing. In Ramla he related ḥadīth from Ibn al-Mubārak, then later presented them as his own, attributing them to the teachers of Ibn al-Mubārak.’” (2)
Abū Ḥātim said, “His ḥadīth are soft (i.e., weak).” (3)
Al-Nasāʾī said, “He is not reliable.”
Ibn ʿAdī said, “His reports are written down only among the weak.” (4)
Ibn Ḥibbān listed him in al-Thiqāt, but he added, “His memory was defective.”