He was born in the year 155 AH.
He heard the Muwatta from Imam Mālik on several occasions, and he received abundantly from al-Layth, as well as from Bakr ibn Muḍar, Ibn Luhayʿa, Yaʿqūb ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qāriʾ, al-Mughīra ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥizāmī, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salama al-Mājishūn, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Ḥāzim, Hiql ibn Ziyād, Ibn Wahb, and a number of others.
Those who transmitted from him include: al-Bukhārī, Ḥarmala, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, Sahl ibn Zanjala, Abū Bakr al-Ṣāghānī, Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī, Baqī ibn Makhlad, Rūḥ ibn al-Faraǧ, Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb al-ʿAllāf, Yaḥyā ibn ʿUthmān ibn Ṣāliḥ, Abū Ḥātim, Khayr ibn Muwafaq, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ al-ʿUkbarī, Mālik ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sayf, Abū Khaythama ʿAlī ibn ʿAmr ibn Khālid al-Ḥarrānī and his son ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Yaḥyā, al-Ḥasan ibn al-Faraǧ al-Ghazzī, along with many others.
The Two Shaykhs relied upon his narrations (1), and Ibn Ḥibbān listed him among the reliable narrators in al-Thiqat. As for Abū Ḥātim, he said, “His reports are not to be taken as proof.” He also remarked, “He understood this discipline well” (2). Al-Nasāʾī, however, deemed him “weak” (3).