Nothing is known of his childhood and youth, except that he studied various disciplines in his hometown of Kūfa. He studied jurisprudence with the founder of the Ḥanafī school of law, Abū Ḥanīfa (q.v.), and became so proficient in it that his name is mentioned alongside Abū Ḥanīfa’s other famous pupils such as Abū Yūsuf (q.v.) and Zufar b. al-Hudhayl (al-Ṣaymarī, 109; Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, 135; al-Hujwīrī, 136; ʿAṭṭār, 186, 200; Jāmī, 41). He heard ḥadīth from ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr, Ḥabīb b. Abī ʿUmara, Sulaymān al-Aʿmash, and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Laylā,…