Muṭarrif, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Kathīr, Mālik, al-Layth, Sulaymān ibn Bilāl, Nāfiʿ ibn Yazīd, Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb, Usāmah ibn Zayd ibn Aslam, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Khallād ibn Sulaymān al-Ḥaḍramī, al-ʿAṭṭāf ibn Khālid, and many others of the same generation.
Those who reported from him include al-Bukhārī, al-Dhuhlī, Abū Bakr al-Ṣāghānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIjlī, Isḥāq al-Kawsaj, Ismāʿīl Sammūyah, Ḥumayd ibn Zanjūyah, ʿUbayd ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Bazzār, Abū Ḥātim, Yaḥyā ibn ʿUthmān ibn Ṣāliḥ, al-Fasawī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Barqī, Ibn Maʿīn—who praised him—and many others besides, among them his nephew, the ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad ibn Saʿd.
Abū Dāwūd said: “In my judgment, Ibn Abī Maryam is an authoritative source.” (1)
Abū Ḥātim and others said: “Trustworthy.” (2)
I say: He was one of the leading masters of ḥadith.
Al-ʿIjlī said: “Reliable. He had a long vestibule; a man would come, stand there, and greet him with salām, and he would answer, ‘May Allah not greet you, nor preserve you, nor show you favor.’ I would ask, ‘What is this?’ and he would reply, ‘A Qadarite.’ Another would come, and he would say the same thing to him. I would ask, ‘What is this?’ and he would reply, ‘A Jahmite, a vile fellow.’ A third would come, and he would say, ‘A Rāfiḍī,’ and, so far as we can tell, he rejected that man’s greeting altogether.”
He was intelligent; in Egypt I never saw anyone more clear-headed than he—or than ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam. (3)