the master reciter, Abu Ishaq al-Qurashi, al-Sami, al-Basri, a descendant of al-Harith ibn Samah ibn Lu’ayy ibn Ghalib.
He settled in Baghdad and disseminated knowledge there. He came from a family of hadith transmitters—his father was among al-Bukhari’s earliest teachers.
Ibrahim was born sometime after 160 AH, or perhaps a little before.
He narrated from Jaʿfar ibn Sulayman al-Dubaʿi, Muʿtamir ibn Sulayman, Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Qattan, Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar, ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Thaqafi, Harami ibn ʿUmara, ʿAbd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam, al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Muzani—who is not the scholar of prosody—ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi, his grandfather ʿArʿarah ibn al-Birand, and a number of others.
Those who received hadith from him include Muslim, Abu Zurʿah, Abu Hatim, Salih Jazrah, Ibrahim al-Harbi, Ahmad ibn Abi Khaythamah, Abu Yaʿla al-Mawsili, Ahmad ibn al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbar al-Sufi, and many more besides.
Abu Hatim said: “Reliable.”
ʿAli ibn al-Husayn ibn Hibban reports: “I found in my father’s handwriting that I asked Abu Zakariyya ibn Maʿin, ‘And what of Ibn Arʿarah?’ He replied, ‘Trustworthy, well-known, renowned for seeking knowledge, clever with books, yet he brings harm upon himself—he pokes his nose into everything.’”
Muhammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah said: “I was in the presence of Ahmad ibn Hanbal when it was said to him, ‘They…’”