He kept close company with Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, graduated under him, and questioned him about the narrators; that discussion fills a sizeable volume.

The four compilers of the Sunan all transmitted ḥadith from him, and al-Nasāʾī declared him trustworthy. Among those who narrated from him are: Ibn Ṣāʿid, Abū ʿAwanah, Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād, Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Bakhtarī (1), Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār, Ḥamzah ibn Muḥammad al-Dihqānī, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm, and many others.

Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm said, “I have not seen among my teachers anyone whose ḥadith are finer than his.”

I say: He may have intended by “finer” their precision, or that he chose attractive texts to transmit, or that he sought lofty chains, or clean chains, avoiding what is anomalous, rejected, abrogated, and the like. These are qualities which, when a ḥadith scholar adheres to them, cause people to say, “How excellent are his narrations!”

Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār said, “I heard ʿAbbās al-Dūrī say: ‘Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal wrote a letter on my behalf to Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī in which they said, “This is a young man seeking ḥadith,” yet they did not say, “He is one of the people of ḥadith.”’ ”

I say: At that time he was a beginner, seventeen years old; then he became a student of ḥadith, and eventually one of the leading ḥuffāẓ of his era.

Al-Dūrī outlived his companion and peer Abū Bakr al-Ṣāghānī by one year.