He was born around the year 200 AH.

He studied under Muslim ibn Ibrahim, al-Qanabi, Abu al-Walid al-Tayalisi, Muhammad ibn Kathir al-ʿAbdi, ʿAli ibn ʿUthman al-Lahqi, Musaddad ibn Musrhad, Abu Salama al-Tabudhaki, Ahmad ibn Yunus, Muhammad ibn Sinan al-ʿAwqi, ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muhammad al-ʿAyshi, Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Farawi, Yahya ibn Hashim al-Simsar, Hafs ibn ʿUmar al-Hawdi, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Jarrah, ʿAbd al-Aʿla ibn Hammad, Abu al-Rabiʿ al-Zahrani, Sahl ibn Bakkar, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Muqaddami, Muhammad ibn al-Minhal, and their peers.

In the non-Arab lands the loftiest chains of transmission terminated with him, and he was noted for truthfulness and expertise.

Those who narrated from him include ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Abi Hatim—who said, “He is reliable”—ʿAli ibn Shahriyar, Ahmad ibn Ishaq al-Tayibi (1), Abu ʿAmr Ismaʿil ibn Nujayd, Ahmad ibn ʿUbayd al-Hamadhani, and many others. The last of his students to die was Abu Saʿid ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Razi.

Abu Yaʿla al-Khalili said, “Ibn al-Durays is trustworthy; he is a hadith scholar, the son of a hadith scholar, and his grandfather Yahya ibn al-Durays was one of Sufyan al-Thawri’s companions.”

When Abu Bakr al-Ismaʿili heard of Ibn al-Durays’s death—and he had been planning to travel to see him—he cried out, struck his face, and said to his family, “You have kept me from making the journey to him.” He added, “They finally took pity on me and sent me off with my uncle to al-Hasan ibn Sufyan.”

Ibn al-Durays passed away in Rayy on the Day of ʿAshura, 294 AH.