I am inclined to think that he met him in Basra, for he himself relates: “I arrived in Basra and was met by the funeral procession of Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān; it was in Ṣafar of the year 198 AH. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān lived on for a further five months, and I transmitted a great deal from him—he was my earliest and most distinguished teacher.”
In that city he also heard from Muḥammad b. Bakr al-Bursānī, Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī, Wahb b. Jarīr, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥanafī, Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī, Saʿīd b. ʿĀmir, Ṣafwān b. ʿĪsā, Abū ʿĀṣim, Ḥabbān b. Hilāl, and their peers.
In Kūfa he received ḥadith from Asbāṭ b. Muḥammad, ʿAmr b. Muḥammad al-ʿAnqazī, Yaʿlā b. ʿUbayd, his brother Muḥammad, Jaʿfar b. ʿAwn, Muḥāḍir b. al-Muwarraʿ, ʿUbayd Allāh b. Mūsā, Abū Badr al-Sakūnī, and many others.
At Wāsiṭ he learned from Yazīd b. Hārūn, ʿAlī b. ʿĀṣim, and several others.
In Baghdad he studied under Abū al-Naḍr, al-Aswad b. ʿĀmir, Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm, al-Wāqidī, and numerous scholars besides.
In Mecca he heard from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muqrīʾ and his circle.
In Medina he studied with ʿAbd al-Malik b. al-Mājishūn, ʿAbd Allāh b. Nāfiʿ, and others.
In Yemen he transmitted extensively from ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and also from Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥakam b. Abān, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Walīd, Yazīd b. Abī Ḥakīm, and Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Karīm.
In Egypt he took ḥadith from ʿAmr b. Abī Salamah, Yaḥyā b. Ḥassān, Saʿīd b. Abī Maryam, and Abū Ṣāliḥ.
In Syria he studied with al-Firyābī, al-Haytham b. Jamīl, Abū Mushir, Abū al-Yamān, and ʿAlī b. ʿAyyāsh.
In the Jazīrah region he heard from ʿAmr b. Khālid, al-Nufaylī, and a great many other scholars of that generation.
He recorded both ʿāliy (elevated) and nāzil (lower) chains of transmission; he was an ocean that no bucket could muddy.
He gathered, arranged, and perfected the corpus of al-Zuhrī; for this reason he was nicknamed “al-Zuhrī,” though he was also known as “al-Dhuhlī.”
The mantle of scholarly leadership, prestige, and eminence in his homeland settled upon him.
In Nīshāpūr he commanded a remarkable reverence—of the same order as that enjoyed by Imām Aḥmad in Baghdad and Mālik in Medina.
Multitudes narrated from him; among the foremost authorities were Saʿīd b. Abī Maryam, Abū Jaʿfar