He narrated from his own father, as well as from Muʿāwiyah and Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh. Only a few ḥadiths are recorded from him.

Among those who transmitted from him are al-Awzāʿī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zabr, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir, and Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.

He was eloquent in admonition, skilled in storytelling, and of great benefit to the common people.

Al-Awzāʿī said, “His devotion was on a level we have never heard anyone else capable of attaining; every day and night he performed one thousand cycles of prayer.”

Aḥmad al-ʿIjlī declared him reliable, and some compared him to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Abū Zurʿah al-Naṣrī remarked, “For the people of Syria he was what al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī is for the people of Iraq.”

He was the principal Qurʾān-reciter of Syria, endowed with a powerful voice.

ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad reported: “Al-Awzāʿī told us, ‘I have never heard an exhorter more eloquent than Bilāl ibn Saʿd.’”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Tamīm said: I heard him say:

“O people of God-consciousness! You were not created for extinction; you are merely transferred from one abode to another: from loins to wombs, from wombs to the present world, from the present world to the graves, from the graves to the assembly field, and from the assembly field to everlasting life—either in Paradise or in the Fire.”

Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq informed us; al-Fatḥ ibn ʿAbd al-Salām informed us; Hibat Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn informed us; Ibn al-Naqqūr narrated to us; ʿĪsā ibn al-Jarrāḥ informed us; Abū Bakr ibn Nayrūz narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated, saying: “I heard al-Awzāʿī say:

‘I heard Bilāl ibn Saʿd say: Do not consider the sin’s smallness; rather, consider the One you have disobeyed.’”

Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir said: “Bilāl ibn Saʿd was the imam of the Great Mosque of Damascus, and he said …”