Abū Muḥammad al-Harawī—also called al-Ḥadathānī, al-Anbārī—took up residence in Ḥadīthat an-Nawrah, a small village situated downstream from ʿĀnah and upstream from al-Anbār. He was perpetually on the road, a tireless traveler and wanderer, wholly devoted to the science of ḥadīth.
He met the senior authorities and reported from many of them: Mālik ibn Anas with his Muwaṭṭaʾ, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, ʿAmr ibn Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Umawī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Rijāl, Shurayk the judge, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn al-Ḥasan al-Hilālī, Sawwār ibn Muṣʿab, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, Ḥafṣ ibn Maysarah al-Ṣanʿānī, ʿAbd Rabbih ibn Bāriq, Muslim al-Zanjī, Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd, Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Abī Mālik, Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam, Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAlī ibn Mushir, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Ḥāzim, al-Darāwardī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Zinād, Faraj ibn Faḍālah, and many others in the two Sanctuaries, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.
Among those who transmitted from him were: Muslim, Ibn Mājah, his own teacher Baqiyyah, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān the Qurʾān-reciter, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, Aḥmad ibn al-Azhar, Abū Zurʿah, Baqiyy ibn Makhlad, Abū Ḥātim, Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah, Ibrāhīm ibn Hāniʾ, ʿUbayd al-ʿIjlī, al-Ḥasan al-Maʿmarī, Isḥāq al-Minjanīqī, Jaʿfar al-Firyābī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Jaʿd al-Washshāʾ—the one who received the Muwaṭṭaʾ from him—Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAjab al-Anbārī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, al-Qāsim al-Muṭarriz, Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, Abū Bakr al-Baghandī, and many others.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad said, “I presented to my father some ḥadīths narrated by Suwayd ibn Saʿīd from …”