He narrated ḥadith from Safwān ibn ʿAmr, Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Maryam, Shuʿayb ibn Abī Ḥamzah, Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, ʿUfair ibn Maʿdān, Arṭāh ibn al-Mundhir, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, Yazīd ibn Saʿīd ibn Dhī ʿUṣwān, Abū Mahdī Saʿīd ibn Sinān, and others; I am not aware that he ever undertook a journey in search of knowledge.
Those who received ḥadith from him include Aḥmad, Ibn Maʿīn, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, ʿAmr ibn Manṣūr al-Nasāʾī, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Faḍālah, ʿImrān ibn Bakkār, Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Bukhārī, ʿUthmān al-Dārimī, Abū Ḥātim, Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf, Abū Zurʿah al-Dimashqī, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī, Mūsā ibn ʿĪsā ibn al-Mundhir, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥakkānī, Aḥmad ibn al-Furāt, and many others besides them.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “As for Abū al-Yamān’s narrations from Ḥarīz and Safwān ibn ʿAmr, they are sound.”⦗1⦘
He then remarked, “Yet he says, ‘Shuʿayb narrated to us,’ and he deemed that permissible on the basis of something quite astonishing. Shuʿayb was exceedingly strict in ḥadith. ʿAlī ibn ʿAbbās had heard from him, and I have mentioned a story about the people of Ḥimṣ—I believe they asked him for permission to transmit from him, whereupon he said to them, ‘Do not relate these reports from me,’ meaning Shuʿayb.”
Abū ʿAbd Allāh continued, “They spoke with him again while Abū al-Yamān was present, and he said to them, ‘Transmit those ḥadith from me.’ ”
Al-Athram said, “I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh, ‘Was that by munāwala?⦗2⦘’ ”
He replied, “Had it been munāwala he would not have given them any books or anything at all; he merely heard this alone. Shuʿayb’s son used to say, ‘Abū al-Yamān came to me and later took Shuʿayb’s books from me, while he was saying…’”