He heard an uncountable number of narrations, gathered them, and composed works.
Al-Hakim said about him in his History: “The shaykh of his era in Khurasan in truthfulness and in journeying for knowledge.”
In the Hijaz he studied under Sufyan ibn ʿUyaynah, Maʿn ibn ʿIsa, Ibn Abi Fudayk, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Uways, and their peers.
In Kufa he learned from ʿAbd Allah ibn Idris, Wakīʿ, Ibn Numayr, Abu Muʿawiyah, Abu Usamah, Yunus ibn Bukayr, al-Husayn al-Juʿfi, and many others.
In Yemen he heard from ʿAbd al-Razzaq, his brother ʿAbd al-Wahhab, Yazid ibn Abi Hakim, ʿAbd Allah al-Walid, and Ismaʿil ibn ʿAbd al-Karim.
In Basra he related from Abu Dawud, Wahb ibn Jarir, Abu Qutaybah, Abu ʿAli al-Hanafi, Hammad ibn Masʿadah, and a number of others.
Among his teachers in Wasit were Yazid ibn Harun and his contemporaries; in al-Madaʾin, Shababah; in Baghdad, Abu al-Nadr and others; and in Khurasan, Nadr ibn Shumayl, Makki ibn Ibrahim, and their circle.
He devoted himself to the Sunnah, both in knowledge and in practice; he lived to an advanced age, and scholars traveled to him.
Among those who narrated from him were al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Nasaʾi, and al-Tirmidhi in their compilations; Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Dhuhli; Ahmad ibn Salamah; Abu Zurʿah; Ibrahim ibn Abi Talib; Abu Bakr ibn Khuzaymah; Abu Bakr ibn Abi Dawud; Muhammad ibn Aqil al-Balkhi; Jaʿfar ibn Ahmad ibn Nasr; Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Thaqafi; Zanjuwayh ibn Muhammad; and many others, the last of whom to die was Hajib ibn Ahmad al-Tusi.
Through his chain, a hadith is obtained with a lofty isnad in the Thaqafiyyat (1).