Among those who transmitted from him were: ʿAmr (1) ibn Mālik al-Sharʿabī, ʿUmārah ibn Ghaziyyah, Saʿīd ibn Abī Ayyūb, Ḥaywah ibn Shurayḥ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shurayḥ, Ibn Isḥāq, Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Ibn Luhayʿah, ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, Khālid ibn Ḥumayd al-Mahrī (2), and others.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “There is no harm in him; he was devoted to fiqh.”
Abū Ḥātim said, “Trustworthy, one of the close associates (3) of Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb.”
Al-Nasāʾī said, “Reliable.”
Ibn Saʿd said, “Reliable; the jurist of his time.”
Abū Naṣr al-Kalābadī said, “He was a jurist in his era.”
Ibn Yūnus said, “He was a scholar, an ascetic, and a devout worshipper.”
Saʿīd ibn Zakariyyā al-Adami reported that Sulaymān ibn Abī Dāwūd used to say, “My eyes have never seen an ascetic scholar like ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Jaʿfar.”
Ibrāhīm ibn Nashīṭ al-Waʿlānī (4) narrated from ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Jaʿfar that he said, “It was commonly said: A servant has never sought help for his religion with anything better than fear of Allah.”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shurayḥ also related from ʿUbayd Allah ibn Abī Jaʿfar:
“We marched on campaign to Constantinople. Our ship was wrecked, and the waves cast us onto a single plank at sea. We were five or six men. Allah caused, equal to our number, a leaf to sprout for each of us; we would suck on it and it filled us and quenched our thirst. When evening came, Allah would cause another to grow in its place.”