He was the freedman of the ḥadith scholar ʿAlī ibn Abī Ḥamalah, himself a freedman of the household of ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah al-Qurashī. Others said he was the freedman of a different family. Damrah’s lineage was originally Damascene.
He transmitted ḥadith from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī ʿAblah, Idrīs ibn Yazīd al-Awdi, Yaḥyā ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Saybānī, Sufyān al-Thawrī, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ḥamalah—his patron—ʿUthmān ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurasānī, Khulayid ibn Daʿlj, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shawdhab, al-Sarī ibn Yaḥyā al-Baṣrī, Abū ʿAmr al-Awzāʿī, Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Bakr al-Dimashqī, Bilāl ibn Kaʿb al-ʿUkkī, Rajāʾ ibn Abī Salamah, Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and many others besides.
Those who narrated from him include his own teacher Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, Hishām ibn ʿAmmār, Ṣafwān ibn Ṣāliḥ, Ayyūb ibn Muḥammad al-Wazzān, ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān al-Ḥimṣī, Ḥaywah ibn Shurayḥ, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dhakwan, ʿAbdah ibn Mawhab, Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥamzah, Aḥmad ibn Hāshim, Idrīs ibn Sulaymān ibn Abī al-Rabāb, ʿAlī ibn Sahl, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus al-Fākhūrī, Abū al-Aṣbagh Muḥammad ibn Simāʿah, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Mahdī ibn Jaʿfar, Mawhab—the son of Yazīd ibn Mawhab just mentioned—al-Walīd ibn Yazīd ibn Abī Ṭalḥah al-ʿAṭṭār al-Ramlī, Abū ʿUtbah Aḥmad ibn al-Faraj al-Ḥimṣī, and a great many others.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal reported from his father, who said:
“Damrah is a righteous man; his ḥadith are sound. He is among the reliable, trustworthy narrators, and there was no one in Syria like him. He is dearer to us than Baqiyyah, for Baqiyyah did not care from whom he narrated.”(1)
Ibn Maʿīn and al-Nasāʾī likewise declared him trustworthy.