He was born around 210 AH. He later set out on his scholarly travels, hearing ḥadith in Khurasan, Iraq, and the Two Sanctuaries, though he never journeyed to Egypt or Syria.
He narrated from: Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd; Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh; Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr al-Sawwāq al-Balkhī; Maḥmūd ibn Ghailān; Ismāʿīl ibn Mūsā al-Fazārī; Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ; Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī; Bishr ibn Muʿādh al-ʿAqadī; al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Shuʿayb; Abū ʿAmmār al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥurayth; the long-lived ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiya al-Jumaḥī; ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-ʿAlāʾ; Abū Kurayb; ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr; ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd ibn Masrūq al-Kindī; ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Fallās; ʿImrān ibn Mūsā al-Qazzāz; Muḥammad ibn Abān al-Mustamlī; Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd al-Rāzī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā; Muḥammad ibn Rāfiʿ; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Rizmah; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī al-Shawārib; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-ʿAdanī; Naṣr ibn ʿAlī; Hārūn al-Ḥammāl; Hannād ibn al-Sarrī; Abū Hammām al-Walīd ibn Shujāʿ; Yaḥyā ibn Aktham; Yaḥyā ibn Ḥabīb ibn ʿArabī; Yaḥyā ibn Durust al-Baṣrī; Yaḥyā ibn Ṭalḥah al-Yarbūʿī; Yūsuf ibn Ḥammād al-Maʿnī; Isḥāq ibn Mūsā al-Khatmī; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Harawī; and Suwayd ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī.
The earliest-level material he held comprised the traditions of Mālik, the two Ḥammāds, al-Layth, and Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ. His chains then descend, so much so that he narrated copiously from al-Bukhārī, the circle of Hishām ibn ʿAmmār, and others of their rank.
Among those who reported from him were: Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Samarkandī; Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dāwūd al-Marwazī; Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥasnawayh, the Qur’an-reciter; and Aḥmad