al-Ansārī, Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm, ʿUbayd Allah ibn Mūsā, Abū al-Mughīrah, and others of their rank.
The middle tier of his teachers were those who transmitted to him from al-Awzāʿī, Ibn Abī Dhīb, Shuʿbah, Shuʿayb ibn Abī Ḥamzah, and Sufyān al-Thawrī.
Below them came another group, such as the disciples of Mālik, al-Layth, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, and Abū ʿAwānah.
The fourth tier of his shaykhs (1) consisted of the pupils of Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn ʿUyaynah, Ibn Wahb, and al-Walīd ibn Muslim.
Then comes the fifth tier: Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī—who narrates copiously from him and at times conceals his name by tadlīs (2)—Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Mukharrimī, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Ṣāʿiqah. These men were his contemporaries.
He did hear from Abū Mushir, yet he was unsure of the audition; therefore, in works other than the Ṣaḥīḥ he would say, “Abū Mushir narrated to us—or a man narrated to us from him.”
He also related from Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Wāqid al-Ḥarrānī, whom he met in Iraq; he never entered al-Jazīrah (3).
He further said, “I visited Muʿallā ibn Manṣūr al-Rāzī in Baghdad in the year ten.”