and sixty and one hundred,’ whereupon he said, ‘That is the year I was born (1).’
I say: He devoted himself to this science with the utmost care.
He heard hadith from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs, Abū Muʿāwiyah, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Kisāʾī, Wakīʿ, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, Shuʿayb ibn Ḥarb, and others of their rank.
He then entered Damascus and kept the company of Shaykh Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī for a time.
He also studied under Marwān ibn Muḥammad, Abū Mushir al-Ghassānī, and a number of others, after which he turned wholly to worship and devotion.
Those who narrated from him include Salamah ibn Shabīb; Abū Zurʿah of Damascus (2); Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī (3); Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Mājah in their Sunans; Abū Ḥātim; Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ḥalabī; Muḥammad ibn al-Muʿaffā al-Ṣaydāwī; Abū al-Jahm ibn Ṭalab; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Bāghandī—and his son ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad; ʿUmar ibn Baḥr al-Asadī; Muḥammad ibn Khuraym; Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Rāzī; Ibrāhīm ibn Nāʾilah al-Iṣbahānī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalaf; Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd; and many others, the last of whom was Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān ibn Zabbān al-Kindī, who is counted among the weak narrators (4).
Hārūn ibn Saʿīd al-Aylī said—on the authority of Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and he mentioned Aḥmad ibn