Mājah; he also narrated from Qabīṣah ibn Mukhāriq in Abū Dāwūd and al-Nasāʾī, and from many others besides them.
He occasionally practiced tadlīs (concealing an intermediary in the chain), yet he was counted among the imams of guidance.
Those who reported from him include his freedman Abū Rajāʾ Salmān, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, Thābit al-Bunānī, Qatādah, ʿImrān ibn Ḥudayr, al-Muthannā ibn Saʿīd, Ghailān ibn Jarīr, Maymūn al-Qannād, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ, ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal, Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind, Ḥassān ibn ʿAṭiyyah, Abū ʿĀmir al-Khazzār, ʿAmrū ibn Maymūn ibn Mihrān, and many others besides them.
Ibn Saʿd (1) said: “He was trustworthy, prolific in hadith, and his dīwān—his stipend register—was in Syria.”
ʿAlī ibn Abī Ḥamalah said: “Muslim ibn Yasār came to us in Damascus, so we said to him, ‘O Abū ʿAbd Allāh, had Allah known that there was in Iraq anyone better than you, He would have brought him to us.’ He replied, ‘What would you say if you were to see ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd Abū Qilābah al-Jarmī!’ Not many days and nights passed before Abū Qilābah himself arrived.” (2)
Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Muḥammad al-Khawlānī states in his History of Dāriyā (3): “Abū Qilābah was born in Basra. He then came to Syria, settled in Dāriyā, and lived there with his cousin Bayhas ibn Ṣuhayb ibn ʿĀmil ibn Nātil.”
Ashhab narrated from Mālik who said: “Ibn al-Musayyib and al-Qāsim died without leaving any books, whereas Abū Qilābah died and I was informed that he left a mule-load of books.” (4)
Ayyūb narrated from Muslim ibn Yasār who said: “Had Abū Qilābah been from among the non-Arabs—”