His son and student Ishaq al-Mawsili would succeed him as the leader of the conservative tradition and his other pupils included the musicians Mukhariq, Zalzal and Ziryab.
[2] After a year he went to Rayy, where he met an ambassador of the caliph al-Mansur, who enabled him to come to Basra and take singing lessons.
Singing, not study, attracted him, and at the age of twenty-three he fled to Mosul, where he joined a band of wild youths.
There he remained a favorite under al-Hadi, while Harun al-Rashid kept him always with him until his death, when he ordered his son al-Ma'mun to say the prayer over his corpse.
[3][4][5][1] He had many pupils, chief among them his son Ishaq al-Mawsili, the freedman slave Mukhariq, the lutenist Zalzal,[2] as well as the musician Ziryab.