Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar al-Balkhī once asked him, “In what year were you born?”
He answered, “In the year 126 AH.”
He narrated ḥadith from: Yazīd ibn Abī ʿUbayd; Bahz ibn Ḥakīm; ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿīd ibn Abī Hind; Ibn Jurayj; Hishām ibn Ḥassān; al-Juʿayd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; Ḥanzalah ibn Abī Sufyān; Mūsā ibn ʿUbaydah; ʿUthmān ibn Saʿd al-Kātib; Abū Ḥanīfa; Ayman ibn Nābil; Dāwūd ibn Yazīd al-Awdī; Fāʾid Abū al-Warqāʾ; Fiṭr ibn Khalīfa; Hāshim ibn Hāshim ibn ʿUtbah; Hishām al-Dastawāʾī; ʿUthmān ibn al-Aswad; Mālik ibn Anas; Yaʿqūb ibn ʿAṭāʾ; and a number of others. He was not, however, an especially prolific transmitter.
Those who reported from him include: al-Bukhārī; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; ʿUbayd Allah al-Qawārīrī; Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā; Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn; Bundār; Sahl ibn Zanjalah; ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī(1); ʿAbbās al-Dūrī; Aḥmad ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Narsī; al-Kudaymī; Muʿammar ibn Muḥammad al-Balkhī; Yazīd ibn Sinān al-Baṣrī; ʿUmar ibn Mudrik, the preacher; his grandson Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan; Ibrāhīm ibn Zuhayr al-Ḥulwānī; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUthmān al-Balkhī; Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʿqūb al-Jawzajānī; Aḥmad ibn Naṣr, the Qurʾān-reciter of Nīshāpūr; Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Kathīr al-Balkhī; Ḥāmid ibn Maḥmūd ibn Ḥarb; Abū ʿAwf al-Buzūrī; ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Sulaymān al-Balkhī al-Aʿraj; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Māhān al-Balkhī; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Maddawayh al-Tirmidhī; Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-Sarakhsī; Muḥammad ibn Khashnām ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Balkhī; Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Ṣaydilānī; Muḥammad ibn ʿĀmir ibn Kāmil; and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Ghālib,