Ali ibn Muhammad al-Tanafisi, Hajjaj ibn al-Shaʿir, Mahmud ibn Ghaylan, Muhammad ibn Yahya, Muhammad ibn ʿAwf al-Ta’i, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Darimi, Muhammad ibn ʿUthman ibn Karama, Abu Hatim, Abu Bakr al-Saghani, Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Baghandi, ʿAbbas al-Duri, Ahmad ibn Hazim al-Ghifari, Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-ʿIjli, al-Harith ibn Abi Usama, and a great many others.
Al-Bukhari cited him in his Sahih, and Yaʿqub al-Fasawi cited him in his Mashyakha.
Ibn Maʿin—and others besides him—declared him reliable, and his hadith are found in the Six Books.
Abu Hatim said, “Trustworthy, truthful, his narrations are sound. Abu Nuʿaym is more precise than he, and ʿUbayd Allah is the most reliable of them in narrations from Isrāʾīl; Isrāʾīl used to come to him and recite the Qur’an.” (1)
Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-ʿIjli said, “Reliable, a leading authority on the Qur’an, deeply learned in it. I never saw him lift his head, nor was he ever seen laughing.” (2)
Abu ʿUbayd al-Ājurri reports from Abu Dawud that he said, “He was a Shiʿi, an ardent one, yet his hadith remain acceptable.” (3)
I say: He was a man of worship and night vigil who kept the company of Hamza and adopted his manners—save for that baleful tendency toward Shiʿism, which he picked up from the people of his city, a city erected upon innovation.