He heard ḥadith from: Mālik, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān, and a number of others.
Among those who narrated from him were: Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh, al-Dhuhlī, Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Sawwār, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Farrāʾ, and many others.
He was devoted to the Sunnah and outspoken in declaring the truth. Al-Dhuhlī judged him reliable. He refused to profess that the Quran was created and pronounced the Jahmiyyah to be unbelievers (1).
He died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah, 234 AH.
8 – Qutaybah, Abū Rajāʾ ibn Saʿīd ibn Jamīl al-Thaqafī, their mawla * (ʿ)
He is Shaykh al-Islām, the ḥadith master, the imam, the trustworthy authority, the indefatigable traveler, the chronicler of Islam: Abū Rajāʾ Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd ibn Jamīl ibn Ṭarīf al-Thaqafī, their mawla (client), al-Balkhī, al-Baghlānī—originally from the village of Baghlān—one of the clients of the governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf.
(1) The Jahmiyya are the followers of Jahm ibn Safwan, known as Abu Muharriz. He grew up in Samarqand, Khurasan, spent part of his youth in Tirmidh, and was a client (mawla) of the Banu Rasib branch of the Azd tribe. The early scholars unanimously denounced him for his extreme insistence on divine transcendence, which led him to deny the divine attributes and to interpret them allegorically in a way that effectively nullifies them.
The first person from whom the doctrine of ta‘til (negating the attributes) is recorded in Islam is al-Ja‘d ibn Dirham. Jahm ibn Safwan adopted this view from him, propagated it, and the doctrine was therefore linked to Jahm’s name. Jahm was killed in 128/745 alongside al-Harith ibn Surayj during the latter’s revolt against the Umayyads.
See: al-Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 7, pp. 220–221, 236–237; Qasimi, Tarikh al-Jahmiyya wa-l-Mu‘tazila, p. 10 ff. The Mu‘tazila agree with Jahm on certain points but differ from him on several others.
(*) Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat, 7:379; Khalifa, Tabaqat, p. 324; al-Bukhari, Tarikh al-Kabir, 7:195; al-Bukhari, Tarikh al-Saghir, 2:372; al-Fasawi, Tarikh, 1:212; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 7:140; al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 12:464, 470; Ibn al-Jawzi, Tabaqat al-Hanabila, 1:257–258; Ibn al-Athir, al-Lubab, 1:134; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, fols. 1124–1125; al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 2:446–447; al-Dhahabi, al-ʿIbar, 1:433; al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 3:157–158; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 8:358–361; Ibn Taghribirdi, al-Nujum al-Zahira, 2:303; al-Dhahabi, Tabaqat al-Huffaz, p. 195; Ibn Hajar, Khulasa Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 318; Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 2:94–95.