[1] His appellation "az-Zaiyyat" was given to him because he used to work transporting natural oils to Hulwan and then bringing cheese and walnuts back to Kufa.
His style of recitation was traditionally one of three preferred in the historic city of Kufa,[8] his hometown.
[7][9] Az-Zaiyyat himself had been taught to recite the Qur'an by al-A'mash, and al-Kisa'i was one of his students.
[7] The two primary students who preserved and spread his method were Khalaf al-Bazzar and Khallad.
However, his efforts in the latter two fields were largely unrecognized, and the people of Basra in particular disliked his way and alleged that he had grammatical errors.