He was born around 140 AH.
He narrated ḥadith from: Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb al-Miṣrī; Mūsā ibn ʿUlayy ibn Rabāḥ; Abān ibn Yazīd; Ḥammād ibn Salamah; Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dimashqī; Yazīd ibn Ḥayyān—the brother of Muqātil—; Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Aṣbahānī; Fulayḥ ibn Sulaymān; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Mājishūn; al-Rabīʿ ibn Badr; al-Layth ibn Saʿd; Jaʿfar ibn Kaysān, and many others. He also travelled far and wide in the pursuit of knowledge.
Those who reported from him include: Aḥmad; the two sons of Abū Shaybah; Hārūn al-Ḥammāl; Muḥammad ibn Saʿd; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mukharrimī; Aḥmad ibn Sayyār al-Marwazī; Aḥmad ibn Abī Gharazah al-Ghifārī ibn Mulāʿib; al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah; Bishr ibn Mūsā; Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah; Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib; ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, and a great many others.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “A righteous shaykh, reliable; he heard from the people of Syria and from Ibn Lahiʿah.” (1)
Ibn Saʿd said: “He was trustworthy, a ḥāfiẓ of his narrations. He died in Baghdad in 210 AH.” (2)
Others add: in the month of Shaʿbān.
I say: Among the most unusual reports he transmitted is his narration from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from his father, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah:
“The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) forbade eating the two ‘ears’ of the heart.”
Musaddad and Isḥāq ibn Isrāʾīl differed with him, transmitting it instead from: ʿAbd