He heard ḥadith from Abū Muʿāwiyah al-Ḍarīr, Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad al-Aʿwar, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, Isḥāq al-Azraq, Muḥammad ibn Rabīʿah, and a number of others. He lived a long life, and students crowded around him.
Among those who related from him were Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Mājah, Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn Surayj, Abū Muḥammad ibn Ṣāʿid, Muḥammad ibn Makhlad, al-Ḥusayn ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Qaṭṭān, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim.
His reports are found with a particularly short chain of transmission (ʿāli) in al-Ḥaffār’s fascicle. Al-Nasāʾī and others declared him reliable. He died in Shawwāl of 261 AH at a little over eighty years of age.
147 – Ibn Mallās, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Hishām al-Dimashqī *
The shaykh, ḥadith scholar, and trustworthy authority: Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Hishām ibn Mallās al-Numayrī, a Damascene.
He narrated from Marwān ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Fazārī, Harmalah ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sukkarī—the judge of Damascus—and Mutawakkil ibn Mūsā.
Those who narrated from him include his grandson Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, Abū ʿAwānah al-Isfarāyīnī, Ibrāhīm ibn Abī al-Dardāʾ, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaṣāʾirī, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm, Abū Ḥāmid ibn Ḥasnawayh, and many others.