He was born sometime after 140 AH.
He related ḥadith from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salamah, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, Mālik ibn Anas, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Yaʿqūb al-Qummī, Shurayk the judge, Sulaymān ibn Bilāl, Hushaym, and their contemporaries.
Among those who transmitted from him were Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Ṣāʿiqa, Abū Bakr al-Ṣāghānī, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, Abū Umayya al-Ṭarassūsī, Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythama, and many others.
Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and other scholars declared him reliable.
He was one of the leading imams in this discipline, thoroughly versed in the narrators and in detecting hidden flaws.
Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythama said: “My father told me—when we had just returned from Abū Salamah al-Khuzaʿī—‘Today you have written from a head-butting ram.’” (1)
Al-Dāraqutnī remarked: “He ranks among the eminent ḥuffāẓ whose opinions on transmitters were sought and relied upon; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Ibn Maʿīn, and others received that knowledge from him.” (2)
Ibn Saʿd said: “He was trustworthy. At first he withheld his ḥadith, then he narrated for a few days, after which he went to the frontier and died at al-Maṣṣīṣa in 210 AH.” (3)
Abū Bakr likewise recorded his death in that year.