Abū Zurʿah said, “He is trustworthy, a leading authority.”

Mālik remarked, “Among the men of learning we had were some whose very names were their kunyahs; one of them was Abū Salamah.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Yaʿqūb al-Ḍabbī related, “Abū Salamah arrived in Basrah during the governorship of Bishr ibn Marwān. He was a handsome man, his face gleaming like a Heraclian gold dinar. (1)

Al-Zuhrī said, “I found four men of Quraysh to be oceans of knowledge: ʿUrwah, Ibn al-Musayyab, Abū Salamah, and ʿUbaydullāh ibn ʿAbdullāh.

“Abū Salamah would frequently differ with Ibn ʿAbbās, and on that account he missed out on a great deal of knowledge from him.” This was also stated by al-Zuhrī. (2)

ʿUqayl narrated from Ibn Shihāb:

“I came to Egypt to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz—meaning its governor—while I was transmitting hadith solely from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab. Ibrāhīm ibn Qāriẓ said to me, ‘I hear you narrating only from Saʿīd!’ I replied, ‘Yes.’

“He said, ‘You have left behind two men of your own people, and I know no one with more hadith than them: ʿUrwah and Abū Salamah.’ (3)

“When I returned to Madinah, I found ʿUrwah to be an ocean that buckets cannot disturb.

“I observed that he did not narrate much from Abū Salamah, even though they were kinsmen; perhaps something had come between them. Otherwise, in breadth of knowledge Abū Salamah was in no way inferior to ʿUrwah.”

Ibn Saʿd said, (4) “Abū Salamah died in Madinah in the year 94 AH, during the caliphate of al-Walīd, at the age of seventy-two.”