He was born in 150 AH.
He heard ḥadīth from Hushaym ibn Bashīr, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yahyā, Khalaf ibn Khalīfah, al-Mubārak ibn Saʿīd—Sufyān al-Thawrī’s brother—ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Ziyād al-Bakkāʾī, ʿAbbād ibn ʿAbbād al-Muhallabī, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Ḥarb, Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus, al-Ḥakam ibn Ẓuḥayr, Marḥūm ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-ʿAṭṭār, Qurʾān ibn Tammām, ʿAmmār ibn Muḥammad al-Thawrī, ʿAlī ibn Thābit al-Jazarī ⦗1⦘, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿAmmī, Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān al-Taymī, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Abbār, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Muḥāribī, ʿAbbād ibn al-ʿAwwām, Abū Muʿāwiyah, Marwān ibn Shujāʿ, Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, and others of their rank.
He was counted among the scholars of ḥadīth.
Among those who transmitted from him were: al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Zakariyyā “the Tailor of the Sunnah,” ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, Abū Yaʿlā, Qāsim al-Muṭarriz, Ibn Ṣāʿid, al-Maḥāmilī, Ibn Makhlad, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Hāshimī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ismāʿīl al-Warrāq, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Muṭayrī, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Qaṭṭān, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Athram, ʿAlī ibn al-Faḍl al-Sutūrī, al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Rabīʿ al-Anmāṭī, Muʾnis ibn Waṣīf, Ḥabshūn ibn Mūsā al-Khallāl, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Thābit, and Muḥammad ibn Himyān.