He was born sometime after 130 AH.
He transmitted a large number of reports from his father, and also from Ibn ʿAwn, Hishām ibn Ḥassān, Qurrah ibn Khālid, ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār, Shuʿbah, Ghālib ibn Sulaymān, al-Aswad ibn Shaybān, Sallām ibn Abī Muṭīʿ, Hishām al-Dastuwāʾī, Mūsā ibn ʿUlayy ibn Rabāḥ, Ṣakhr ibn Juwayriyyah, and many others.
Those who narrated from him include Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Yaḥyā, ʿAlī, ʿAmrū ibn ʿAlī, Abū Khaythamah, Bundār, ʿAbd Allāh al-Musnadī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Munīr, ʿUqbāh ibn Mukram, Muḥammad ibn Rāfiʿ, Ibn al-Muthannā, Maḥmūd ibn Ghaylān, Aḥmad ibn al-Azhar, Abū Isḥāq al-Jawzajānī, Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī, Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Ribāṭī, al-Ḥasan ibn Abī al-Rabīʿ, Muḥammad ibn Sinān al-Qazzāz, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Daqīqī, Sulaymān ibn Sayf al-Ḥarrānī, Yaʿqūb al-Sadūsī, and a great many others.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal urged people to write down hadiths from him, and he cites him frequently in his Musnad.
Abū Muḥammad Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: “I asked my father about him, and he replied, ‘He is truthful.’” He was then asked, “(Who is preferable) Wahb, Rūḥ, or ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar?” He answered, “Wahb is dearer to me than the other two, and his hadith is sound.” (1)
Al-Nasāʾī and others said: “There is no harm in him.”
Al-ʿIjlī stated: “A trustworthy Basran; however, ʿAffān used to criticise him.”
He passed away at al-Manjashāniyyah, six miles from Medina, while returning from the pilgrimage. His body was then carried to Basra, where he was buried. (2)