He heard from al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah; Ibrāhīm ibn al-Haytham al-Baladī; Ibrāhīm ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī; Muḥammad ibn Maslamah al-Wāsiṭī; Ismāʿīl ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī; Bishr ibn Mūsā; Aḥmad ibn Mūsā al-Ḥammār; ʿUbayd ibn Sharīk al-Bazzār; Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Wazzān; Muḥammad ibn Yūnus al-Kudaymī; Abū Muslim al-Kajjī; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Shawārib; ʿUbayd ibn Ghannām; Muṭayyin; Muʿādh ibn al-Muthannā; and Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Milḥān.
He travelled widely in pursuit of learning, narrated a large body of hadith, and was well-versed in the discipline.
Those who narrated from him include al-Dāraqutnī; Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Razqawayh; Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥākim; Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Faḍl al-Qaṭṭān; Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Bādī; Abū ʿAlī ibn Shādhān; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ḥammāmī; Abū al-Qāsim ibn Bishrān; Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Furāt; and many others.
Al-Barqānī said, “The Baghdadis regard him as trustworthy, but in my estimation he is weak (1).”
Al-Dāraqutnī remarked, “He had memorised [hadith], yet he made mistakes and persisted in them (2).”
Al-Khaṭīb relates from al-Azharī, who heard from Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Furāt, that he said: “Roughly two years before his death Ibn Qāniʿ became confused in his narrations, so we stopped listening to him, though some people continued to receive hadith from him during his confusion (3).”
Al-Khaṭīb also states: “He died in Shawwāl of the year 351 AH (4).”