Al-Wāqidī related: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Sabrah narrated to us, from Mūsā ibn Saʿd, from ʿĀmir ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, who said:
“I heard my father say, ‘I have never seen anyone with quicker comprehension, sounder intellect, broader knowledge, or greater forbearance than Ibn ʿAbbās. I saw ʿUmar call him in for the most intractable problems, saying, “A thorny issue has come up,” and he would not go beyond Ibn ʿAbbās’s opinion—though the veterans of Badr were sitting all around him.’ (1)

Al-Wāqidī also reported: Mūsā ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī told us, from his father, from Mālik ibn Abī ʿĀmir, who heard Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allāh say:
‘Ibn ʿAbbās has been granted penetrating understanding, eloquence, and knowledge; I never saw ʿUmar put anyone ahead of him.’ (2)

Al-Aʿmash narrated, from Muslim ibn Ṣubayḥ (3), from Masrūq, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, who said:
‘If Ibn ʿAbbās had reached our age, not one of us would have equalled a tenth of him.’ (4)
In another wording: ‘None of us would have equalled him.’

Al-Aʿmash further reported to us that ʿAbd Allāh said, ‘What an excellent interpreter of the Qur’an Ibn ʿAbbās is!’ (5)

Al-Aʿmash, on the authority of Ibrāhīm, said:
ʿAbd Allāh remarked, ‘If this young man had lived through what we have lived through, we would not have been able to match him in anything.’

Al-Wāqidī said: Makhramah ibn Bukayr told us, from his father, from Busur ibn Saʿīd, from—