He also said to Mutammim ibn Nuwayrah when the latter was elegizing his brother Mālik with those previously cited verses:
“If I were any good at poetry, I would have said exactly what you said.”
Mutammim replied, “Had my brother died upon what your brother died upon, I would never have grieved for him.”
ʿUmar then said, “No one has offered me condolences like the ones you have.”
Yet, for all that, ʿUmar used to say, “Whenever the east wind (ṣabā) blows, it reminds me of Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb—may Allah be pleased with him.”

Among them was:
Sālim (1) ibn ʿUbayd—some say: ibn Maʿqil (2)—the freedman of Abū Ḥudhayfah ibn ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah. In truth, he had been manumitted by Abū Ḥudhayfah’s wife Thubaytah bint Yaʿār (3). Abū Ḥudhayfah (4) had adopted him and married him to his niece Fāṭimah bint al-Walīd ibn ʿUtbah. When Allah revealed, “Call them by their fathers’ names” (al-Aḥzāb 33:5), Abū Ḥudhayfah’s wife Sahlah bint Sahl ibn ʿAmr came and said, “O Messenger of Allah, Sālim enters my house while I am unprepared.” He ordered her to nurse him, so she did, and thereafter he could enter upon her by virtue of that nursing.

He was one of the leading Muslims. He embraced Islam early and migrated to Madinah before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, leading in prayer those Emigrants who were there—including ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb—because of his great memorization of the Quran. He fought at Badr and in every battle thereafter.

He is one of the four about whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Learn the Quran from four,” (5) naming among them Sālim, the freedman of Abū Ḥudhayfah.

It is related that when ʿUmar lay dying he said, “Had Sālim been alive, I would not have made the matter a council (shūrā).” Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (6) explained that ʿUmar meant he would have relied on Sālim’s judgment as to whom to entrust with the caliphate.

When Sālim took the banner on the Day of al-Yamāmah after Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb had been killed, the Emigrants said to him, “Do you fear that we might be struck from your quarter?” He answered, “Then what a wretched bearer of the Quran I would be!” His right hand was severed, so he grasped the banner with his left; that too was cut off, whereupon he clutched it to his chest while reciting:
“Muhammad is but a messenger; messengers have passed away before him” (Āl ʿImrān 3:144),
“Many a prophet fought, and with him were devout men in great numbers” (Āl ʿImrān 3:146).

When he fell, he asked his companions, “What happened to Abū Ḥudhayfah?”
They replied, “He has been killed.”
He asked, “And what of So-and-so?”
They said, “He too has been killed.”
He said, “Then lay me down between them.”

Later, ʿUmar sent Sālim’s inheritance to the woman who had manumitted him, his patroness Buthaynah (7). She returned it, saying, “I set him free as a saʾibah (a charitable emancipation).” ʿUmar therefore placed the estate in the public treasury (Bayt al-Māl).