His audition sessions took place at the very beginning of the third century AH.

He heard ḥadith from: ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim, Yazīd ibn Hārūn, Rūḥ ibn ʿUbādah, Azhar ibn Saʿd al-Sammān, Bishr ibn ʿUmar al-Zahrānī, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn, Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī, Shujāʿ ibn al-Walīd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bakr al-Sahmī, Muḥāḍir ibn al-Muwarriʿ, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Abū al-Naḍr, Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd, Wahb ibn Jarīr, and Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl.

His isnād then descends to: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, and Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn; thereafter to al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥalwānī, Hārūn al-Ḥammāl, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, and Abū Bakr al-Aʿyan; and further down to the pupils of Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and Ibn al-Madīnī.

In his Musnad he brings together both higher and lower isnāds, opening each section with a full biography of the Companion, then quoting what that Companion transmitted. He clarifies the hidden defects of the reports, discusses the transmitters, and offers criticism and endorsement in language that is beneficial, graceful, and convincing—so much so that anyone who consults his Musnad never wearies of it, though few actually narrated from him.

Those who did transmit from him include his grandson Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb, Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb al-Azraq, and a number of others.

He was deemed reliable by Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb and others (1).

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dāraqutnī said, “If the book of Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah were written on the wall of a bathhouse, it would still deserve to be copied” (2)—meaning that one need not have heard it directly from him.

Al-Khaṭīb said: al-Azharī related to me, “I have been informed that in the house of Yaʿqūb ibn Shaybah there were forty blankets kept ready for the professional scribes who were making a clean copy of his Musnad.”

He added, “And he remained attached to him for what he extracted from it—ten thousand….”