Ḥumayd; Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah the judge; Sharīk the judge; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh; al-Ḥakam ibn Ẓuḥayr; Yazīd ibn al-Miqdām; Ibn al-Mubārak; Abū al-Malīḥ al-Raqqī; ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar; Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd; Abū al-Aḥwaṣ; and others of their rank.
He absorbed an immense store of knowledge, lived to a great age, and scholars undertook journeys to learn from him.
Those who transmitted from him include: Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, Abū Ḥātim, Abū Dāwūd in his Sunan, Yazīd ibn Jahwar al-Tarsūsī, Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd al-Jawharī, Zuhayr ibn Muḥammad ibn Qumayr, Aḥmad ibn Khulayd al-Ḥalabī, and Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī.
Among his contemporaries were Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and others. Al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Nasāʾī, and al-Qazwīnī likewise cited him in their compilations—each through a single intermediary.
Abū Ḥātim said, “He is reliable, an authoritative proof.” (1)
Abū Dāwūd remarked, “Abū Tawbah came to Kūfah but never travelled on to Basrah. He had the lengthy narrations perfectly memorised and would recite them. I saw him walking barefoot with a large turban on his head. It was also said that he was one of the abdāl.” (2)
I say: He was the last person to transmit from Muʿāwiyah ibn Sallām.
Al-Nasāʾī said, “There was nothing objectionable about him.” (3)
Al-Fasawī likewise said, “He was sound,” and added that he died in 241 AH. (4)