Those who narrated from him include Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Mājah, Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib, Ibn Khuzaymah, Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī, Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād, Abū Ḥāmid ibn Bilāl, Makkī ibn ʿAbdān, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Qaṭṭān, and many others.
Al-Ḥākim mentioned him, saying: “One of the leading ḥadith scholars—much-travelled, broad in understanding, and accepted by the imams throughout the lands. He was among the close companions of Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā and was related to him by marriage.”
I heard Muḥammad ibn Ḥāmid al-Bazzār say: “I heard our shaykhs recount that Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Sulamī said, ‘I am not a Sulamī; I am an Azdī, though my family are Sulamīs.’” (1)
He collected narrations in Khurāsān from numerous teachers; in Rayy he heard from ʿĪsā ibn Jaʿfar the judge, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḍurays, and Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Qazzāz; in Baghdad from Abū al-Naḍr, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Madāʾinī, Mūsā ibn Dāwūd, and Manṣūr ibn Salamah.
Al-Ḥākim then named a group from whom he heard in Kūfa, Basra, the Ḥijāz, Yemen, Syria, and al-Jazīrah.
Ibn ʿAsākir also cited him, saying: “He narrated from Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd, al-ʿAqadī, al-Firyābī, Abū Mushir, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bukayr,” and he listed many others besides.
Among those who transmitted from him were his own teacher Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā and al-Bukhārī in works other than his Ṣaḥīḥ.