He was born around the year 150 AH.
He narrated from ʿIkrimah ibn Ibrāhīm al-Azdī, Sulaymān ibn Bilāl, Sharīk the judge, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Makhramī, Mālik ibn Anas, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Abū ʿAwānah, Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Hushaym, Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah the judge, Ṣadaqah ibn Khālid, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, ʿAmrū ibn Abī al-Miqdām, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Mawāl, ʿAbd al-Wārith, Abū Uways ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Ibn al-Mubārak, and the judge Abū Yūsuf—under whom he studied jurisprudence for a time. He wrote from many other scholars as well and came to excel in both fiqh and hadith.
Those who transmitted from him include Abū Thawr the jurist, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mukharramī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Ṣāʿiqah, Ḥajjāj ibn al-Shāʿir, Aḥmad ibn al-Azhar, al-Faḍl ibn Sahl al-Aʿraj, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣāghānī, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī—though not in the Ṣaḥīḥ—Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah, Abū Qudāmah al-Sarakhsī, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, Ibn Manṣūr al-Ramādī, al-Ḥasan ibn Mukram, and many others.
Aḥmad said, “I did not write anything from him.” (1)
He also stated, “He would relate what suited personal opinion, and every day he would err in two or three hadiths; so I used to pass him by and go to ʿUbayd ibn Abī Qurrah in Qaṭīʿat al-Rabīʿ.” (2)
Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Ṭabbāʿ said, “I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal about Muʿallā…”