Layth ibn Kinānah, one of their own. Others, however, say he was actually a Tamīmī.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal reports that Abū al-Naḍr said: “I was born in the year 134 AH.”(1)
He heard hadith from Ibn Abī Dhīʾb, Shuʿbah, and Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān. He once saw Sufyān al-Thawrī performing ablution in Mecca, though he did not narrate from him.
Among those from whom he also received narrations were: ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār, Abū Jaʿfar al-Rāzī, Shaybān the Grammarian, Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah, Mubārak ibn Faḍālah, al-Masʿūdī, Warqāʾ ibn ʿUmar, Abū ʿAqīl—the companion of Buhayyah—ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Mājishūn, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Thābit ibn Thawbān, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Abū Maʿshar al-Sindī, Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah ibn Muṣarrif, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dīnār, al-Walīd ibn Jamīl, Abū Isḥāq al-Ashjaʿī, Abū ʿAqīl al-Thaqafī, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Ḥabīb, Bakr ibn Khunays, and ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ashjaʿī.
From Shuʿbah alone he took down what the latter dictated in Baghdad—some four thousand hadiths. He traveled extensively, collected traditions, and composed works.
Those who transmitted from him include: Aḥmad, ʿAlī, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Isḥāq, Khalaf ibn Sālim, Ibn Abī Shaybah, ʿAmr al-Nāqid, Ḥajjāj ibn al-Shāʿir, al-Faḍl ibn Sahl, ʿAbdu ibn Ḥumayd, Maḥmūd ibn Ghailān, Muḥammad ibn Rāfiʿ, Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah, and his son Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Naḍr, as well as Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Munādī, Abū Bakr al-Ṣāghānī, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, Aḥmad ibn al-Furāt, Aḥmad ibn al-Khalīl al-Burjalānī, al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah, and many others.