His teachers:
He began seeking knowledge at the age of fifteen—the very year in which Mālik and Ḥammād ibn Zayd passed away.
He heard only a few reports from Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd, but he narrated copiously and with great accuracy from Hushaym ibn Bashīr.
Among those from whom he took transmission were: ʿAbbād ibn ʿAbbād al-Muhallabī; Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān al-Taymī; Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah al-Hilālī; Ayyūb ibn al-Najjār; Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah; ʿAlī ibn Hāshim ibn al-Barīd (1); Qurān ibn Tammām; ʿAmmār ibn Muḥammad al-Thawrī; the judge Abū Yūsuf; Jābir ibn Nūḥ al-Ḥimmānī; the judge ʿAlī ibn Ghurāb; ʿUmar ibn ʿUbayd al-Ṭanāfisī and his two brothers, Yaʿlā and Muḥammad;
al-Muṭṭalib ibn Ziyād; Yūsuf ibn al-Mājishūn; Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd; Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith; Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal; ʿAbbād ibn al-ʿAwwām; Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṭufāwī; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿAmmī; and ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān;
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Ghunayyah; al-Naḍr ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bajalī; Abū Khālid al-Aḥmar; ʿAlī ibn Thābit al-Jazarī; Abū ʿUbaydah al-Ḥaddād; ʿUbaydah ibn Ḥumayd al-Ḥaddāʾ; Muḥammad ibn Salamah al-Ḥarrānī; Abū Muʿāwiyah al-Ḍarīr; and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs;
Marwān ibn Muʿāwiyah; Ghundar; Ibn ʿUlayyah; Makhlad ibn Yazīd al-Ḥarrānī; Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī; Muḥammad ibn Fuḍayl; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Muḥāribī; al-Walīd ibn Muslim; Yaḥyā ibn Sulaym—only a single hadith from him—Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-Wāsiṭī; and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Muzanī al-Wāsiṭī;
Yazīd ibn Hārūn; ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim; Shuʿayb ibn Ḥarb; Wakīʿ, from whom he received a vast amount; Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, from whom he derived the utmost benefit; Miskīn ibn Bukayr; Anas ibn ʿIyāḍ al-Laythī; Isḥāq al-Azraq; and Muʿādh ibn