He was counted among the eminent Companions and their scholars, and he eventually settled in Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem).

Those who transmitted ḥadith from him include his son Yaʿlā, Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī, Abū Asmāʾ al-Raḥabī, Abū al-Ashʿath al-Ṣanʿānī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm, Jubayr ibn Nufayr, Kathīr ibn Murrah, Bashīr ibn Kaʿb, and others.

ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Bahrām related—from Shahr—that he heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm say:

“When Abū al-Dardāʾ and I entered the mosque of al-Jābiya (1), we met ʿUbāda ibn al-Ṣāmit. He took my right hand with his left and, with his right, the left hand of Abū al-Dardāʾ, and said:

‘If one of you—or both of you—lives long enough, it is likely (2) that you will see a man from the general ranks (3) of the Muslims who has recited the Quran, repeated it again and again, explained it, deemed its lawful lawful and its unlawful unlawful, and stopped at its proper pauses—or who recites it on the tongue of another—yet he will not turn back to it among you any more than the head of a dead donkey turns (4).’

While we were seated like that, Shaddād ibn Aws and ʿAwf ibn Mālik came up and sat with us. Shaddād said:

‘The thing I fear most for you, O people, is what I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the hidden desire and about shirk.’

ʿUbāda and Abū al-Dardāʾ replied, ‘O Allah, forgive us! Did not the Messenger of Allah ﷺ tell us that Satan has despaired of ever being worshipped in the Arabian Peninsula? As for the hidden desire, we know it: the worldly cravings for its women and its other pleasures. So what is this shirk with which you are alarming us, O Shaddād?’