He transmitted ḥadīth from: Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shīrawayh, Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Ibn Khuzaymah, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Māsarjīsī, and their peers in Naysābūr.

He also related from: al-Ḥusayn ibn Idrīs; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sāmī in Herat; Abū Khalīfa al-Jumaḥī; Zakariyyā al-Sājī in Basra; Muḥammad ibn Nuṣayr and his contemporaries in Isfahān; Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Qattāt and several others in Kūfa; ʿAbdān al-Jawāliqī in Ahwāz; and al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān in Nisā.

Among those from whom he heard as well were: al-Ḥasan ibn al-Faraj al-Ghazzī in Gaza; ʿImrān ibn Mūsā ibn Mujāshiʿ in Jurjān; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī; Abū Yaʿqūb al-Manjanīqī in Egypt; Abū Yaʿlā ibn al-Muthannā in Mosul; Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Suwayd—his earliest shaykh; Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ḥulwānī in Hulwān; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Nājiya; Muḥammad ibn Ḥibbān in Baghdad; together with a multitude of scholars in the towns of Khurāsān and in the Two Sanctuaries, Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq, the Jazīrah, and the Jibāl.

In his early youth he was apprenticed to the gold-smiths, but when some scholars witnessed his remarkable intelligence they advised him to pursue knowledge. He welcomed the counsel and devoted himself wholeheartedly to study.

Among those who narrated from him were: Ibn Manda, al-Ḥākim, Abū Ṭāhir ibn Maḥmish, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, and many others.

The two eminent imams Abū Bakr al-Ṣibghī and Abū al-Walīd Ḥassān ibn Muḥammad—both older than he—likewise transmitted from him.

Al-Ḥākim was his disciple, graduated under him, and said: “In memorization, precision, scrupulousness, scholarly discussion, and authorship he stood alone in his age.”

He (al-Ḥākim) said: “He heard from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Ṭālib,” after which he listed the rest of his shaykhs.

And Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “I travelled to Herat in the year five…"