He narrated from al-Awzaʿī, having heard him in Beirut; and also from Maʿmar, ʿAbd Allah ibn Shawdhab, Hammad ibn Salamah, Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah, and a number of others.
Those who transmitted from him include al-Hasan ibn al-Rabīʿ al-Būrānī, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, Shihāb ibn ʿAbbād al-ʿAbdī, Abū ʿUmayr ibn al-Naḥḥās, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhalī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf al-Ṭāʾī, ʿAbbās al-Tarqufī, Yūsuf ibn Muslim, Muḥammad ibn al-Haytham, the judge of ʿUkbarā, al-Hasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ al-Bazzār, Fahd ibn Sulaymān al-Dallāl, and several others.
Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿUqaylī said: “He is from Ṣanʿāʾ of Damascus.” ⦗1⦘
Hibat Allah ibn al-Akfānī asserted that he was from Maṣṣīṣah of Damascus, but this holds no weight, for he was merely stationed as a frontier guard in the Syrian border city of Maṣṣīṣah, and his narrations are transmitted with a high isnād in the Ghaylāniyyāt collection.
As for Khalīfah, he said: “He is originally from Ṣanʿāʾ, grew up in Syria, and settled in Maṣṣīṣah.” ⦗2⦘
Al-Bukhārī remarked ⦗3⦘: “He was a client of Thaqīf and narrated from Maʿmar and al-Awzaʿī.”