His full lineage is: Zakariyya ibn Yahya ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Baḥr ibn ʿAdi ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Abyad ibn al-Daylam ibn Basil ibn Ḍabba al-Ḍabbi, a Basran by origin and a follower of the Shafiʿi school.

He heard ḥadith from Talut ibn ʿAbbad; Abū al-Rabiʿ al-Zahrani; ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muʿadh al-ʿAnbari; ʿAbd al-Waḥid ibn Ghiyath; ʿAbd al-Aʿla ibn Ḥammād al-Narsi; Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Shawarib; Abū Kamil al-Jahdari; Musa ibn ʿUmar al-Jari; Sulayman ibn Dawud al-Mahri; Hudbah ibn Khalid al-Qaysi; Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Ḥarashi; Muḥammad ibn Bashshar; his own father, Yahya al-Saji; and many other authorities in Basra.

As far as I can tell, he never undertook extensive travels in search of knowledge.

Those who narrated from him include Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdi; Abū Bakr al-Ismaʿili; ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Saqqāʾ al-Wasiti; Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAli ibn Ismaʿil, the theologian; Yusuf ibn Yaʿqub al-Bakhtari; Abū al-Qasim al-Ṭabarani; Abū ʿAmr ibn Ḥamdan; the judge Yusuf al-Mayanaji; ʿAli ibn Luʾluʾ the copyist; Abū Shaykh ibn Ḥayyan; and many others besides them.

He was counted among the leading imams of ḥadith.

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿari adopted from him the creed of the early generations concerning the divine attributes, and relied upon it in several of his own works.

Shaykh Abū Isḥaq says in Tabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah (1): “Among them is Zakariyya ibn Yahya al-Saji; he studied under al-Rabiʿ and al-Muzani, and he has a book entitled Ikhtilāf al-ʿUlamāʾ (Differences among the Scholars) (2).”