He transmitted hadith from Ibn ʿUmar, Jābir, and others. Among those who narrated from him were ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ and Ibn ʿAwn. He paid a visit to ʿAbd al-Malik and, according to al-Madāʾinī, died in Damascus in 82 AH.
It is related that a man once purchased a slave-girl who excelled in Quran recitation, poetry, and the like. He grew deeply attached to her and spent his entire fortune on her until he was ruined, owning nothing but the girl herself. Seeing his straitened circumstances, the girl said, “I can tell how little you now possess. Were you to sell me and live off my price, your situation would improve.” He therefore sold her to ʿUmar ibn ʿUbayd Allāh—who was then governor of Basra—for one hundred thousand dirhams. When the money reached his hands he regretted the sale, and the girl likewise felt remorse. Addressing her former master, she hinted at her grief in the following verses (1):
Enjoy the wealth that you have gained this day—
all that remains in my palms are my anxious thoughts.
I say to myself, faint under crushing distress, (2)
“Lessen—or heighten—your sorrow; the companions have gone.”
If you see no stratagem left in this affair,
and cannot avoid endurance—then be patient still.
Her master replied:
Had not the decrees of time held me back from you,
naught but death itself would have sundered our union—so bear with patience.
Shall I return, wounded by the pain of parting,
communing with a heart long practiced in remembrance?
Peace be upon you: no visits lie between us,
nor reunion—unless Ibn Maʿmar should so will.
When Ibn Maʿmar heard her voice and realized how she and the man yearned for one another, he said, “By Allah, I will never again divide two lovers!” He thereupon returned both the hundred thousand dirhams and the girl to the man, moved by the anguish each felt at their separation; the man departed possessing both the slave-girl and her price.
ʿUmar ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Maʿmar later died in Damascus of the plague. ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān performed the funeral prayer over him, walked in his funeral procession, attended his burial, and praised him after his death.
He left a son, Ṭalḥa—one of the nobles of Quraysh—who married Fāṭima bint al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, giving her a dower of forty thousand dinars. She bore him Ibrāhīm and Ramlah. Ramlah subsequently married Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās for a dower of one hundred thousand dinars—may Allah be pleased with them all. (3)