He was born a little after 210 AH.
He heard hadith from: Hudbah ibn Khālid; ʿAbd al-Aʿlā ibn Ḥammād; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Jumaḥī; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Fayyāḍ al-Zimmānī; Muḥammad ibn Maʿmar al-Qaysī; Bishr ibn Muʿādh al-ʿAqadī; ʿĪsā ibn Hārūn al-Qurashī; Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā al-Umawī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Barmakī; ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Fallās; Ziyād ibn Ayyūb; Aḥmad ibn al-Miqdām al-ʿIjlī; Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd al-Jawharī; Bundār; Ibn al-Muthannā; ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shabīb; Muḥammad ibn Mirdās al-Anṣārī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Faḍl al-Ḥarrānī; and many others.
Among those who transmitted from him were: Ibn Qāniʿ, Ibn Najīʿ, Abū Bakr al-Khuttalī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, Abū Shaykh, Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Ayyūb al-Tamīmī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad ibn Fāris, Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Salm al-Fursānī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khālid ibn Rustam al-Rārānī (1), Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Ḍarīr, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Thaqafī, Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Maʿbad al-Simsār, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Kisāʾī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn al-Khaṣīb, Abū Muslim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Siyāh, Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Qabbāb, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mamshādh al-Qārī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥaywayh al-Nīsābūrī, and many others besides them.
Abū Saʿīd al-Naqqāsh once dictated a session in which he recounted material he had received from roughly twenty shaykhs.