He pursued the study of ḥadith while he was still a young man.
He then narrated from: Sulaymān al-Taymī, Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, Saʿīd al-Jurayrī, Ibn ʿAwn, Ashʿath ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Ḥumrānī, Ashʿath ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥuddānī, Ḥabīb ibn al-Shahīd, his own father ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muthannā, Ibn Jurayj, Ismāʿīl ibn Muslim al-Makkī, Qurrāh ibn Khālid, Hishām ibn Ḥassān, Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAlqamah, Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, Abū Khaldah Khālid ibn Dīnār, Ḥajjāj ibn Abī ʿUthmān al-Ṣawwāf, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Akhnas, ʿUyaynah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jawshan, Shuʿbah, Hammām, al-Masʿūdī, and a host of others.
He did not hesitate to relate even from scholars of lesser rank such as Zufar the jurist and Saʿd ibn al-Ṣalt the judge.
Those who transmitted from him include: Abū al-Walīd al-Ṭayālisī; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; Ibn Maʿīn; Bundār; Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah; Aḥmad ibn al-Azhar; al-Zaʿfarānī; al-Fallās; ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī; Qutaybah; Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā; Yaḥyā ibn Jaʿfar al-Bīkandī; Abū Qilābah; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Khanājir; Abū Ḥātim; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Anṣārī the Younger; Abū ʿUmayr ʿAbd al-Kabīr—his son; Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq the judge; Ismāʿīl Sammūyah; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Quraysh; Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muʿāwiyah, and many others—the last of them was Abū Muslim al-Kajji.
Al-Aḥwaṣ ibn al-Mufaḍḍal reported on the authority of Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn that he was “trustworthy.”
Abū Ḥātim said: “Reliable.” (1)
He also remarked: “I have not seen among the leading scholars except—”