He was born before 200 AH.
He transmitted ḥadith from: Abū Nuʿaym al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn; Hawdha ibn Khalīfa; ʿAffān ibn Muslim; Abū Mushir al-Ghassānī; Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Wahbī; Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb; ʿAlī ibn ʿAyyāsh; Abū al-Yamān al-Ḥakam ibn Nāfiʿ; Abū Bakr al-Ḥumaydī; Abū Ghassān al-Nahdī; Saʿīd ibn Sulaymān Saʿdawayh; ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn Dāwūd; Abū al-Jamāhir Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Tanūkhī; Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Farādisī (1); Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr; Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn; Hishām ibn ʿAmmār; Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī; and many others in Syria, Iraq, and the Ḥijāz.
He collected and authored works, exchanged research with the leading ḥuffāẓ, set himself apart, and surpassed his contemporaries thanks to his expertise and the loftiness of his chains of transmission.
Those who narrated from him include: Abū Dāwūd in his Sunan, Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī, Aḥmad ibn al-Muʿallā the judge, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd, Isḥāq ibn Abī al-Dardāʾ al-Ṣarafandī (2), Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Jawṣā, Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm, Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Ḥadhlam, Abū Yaʿqūb al-Adhraʿī, ʿAlī ibn Abī al-ʿAqab, Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, and a great many others.
Aḥmad ibn Salāmah (3) informed us, on the authority of Abū al-Makārim Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, from ʿAbd