ʿUyaynah, ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān, Ibn Idrīs, Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, Wakīʿ, Yazīd, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Marwān ibn Muʿāwiyah, Abū Khālid al-Aḥmar, and many others besides.

He recorded narrations with both high and low chains and spent a long time travelling in search of knowledge.

Those who transmitted from him include the compilers of the canonical collections—except Muslim—and Muslim does cite him outside the Ṣaḥīḥ; also Abū Ḥātim, Ismāʿīl the judge, Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī, Aḥmad ibn Salamah, Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib, al-Maʿmarī, ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad, Muḥammad ibn al-Mujaddar, al-Baghawī, Ibn Khuzaymah, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj, ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥayyān ibn Muqayr, and others.

Al-Baghawī relates from Aḥmad: “Muḥammad ibn Abān used to act as our mustamli while we were with Wakīʿ.”

Al-Marūdhī said: “I asked Abū ʿAbdullāh (Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal), ‘So Abū Bakr was Wakīʿ’s mustamli?’ He replied, ‘He used to sit with us recording the hadith; he even copied a book for me in his own hand.’

“I said, ‘He narrated a report that people objected to—hardly anyone transmits it from ʿAbd al-Razzāq—yet you and Khalaf ibn Sālim both possess it!’ He answered, ‘He was with us that very year.’”

ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad said: “A man from Balkh—Muḥammad ibn Abān—came to us. I asked my father about him; he knew him and mentioned that he had been with them while studying under ʿAbd al-Razzāq, so we wrote down hadith from him.”

Aḥmad ibn Qutaybah reported: “I heard ʿAmr ibn Ḥammād ibn Furāṣah say: I arrived in Kūfah, and Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah asked me about Muḥammad ibn Abān. I replied, ‘I left him intending to come; he had firmly decided to set out.’ Ibn Abī Shaybah said, ‘If only he would arrive so people could benefit from him.’”

Abū Ḥātim said: “Truthful.”

Al-Nasaʾī said: “Reliable.”