asking me questions. His companions looked puzzled and exclaimed, “You are going to ask him?!” I answered, “Why should that surprise you? He is more knowledgeable than I am.”
Ibn Abī Laylā—who was himself an authority on the rites of Ḥajj—said, “He has performed the pilgrimage more than seventy times. On the day he died he was about one hundred years old. I once saw him drinking water in Ramaḍān while reciting Ibn ʿAbbās’s explanation of the verse, ‘And for those who are able but with hardship, there is a ransom: feeding a destitute person; and whoever volunteers more, it is better for him’ (al-Baqarah 2:184), and adding, ‘I feed more than one destitute person.’(1)
Ibn Wahb reported from Mālik:
“ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, Mujāhid, and others among the people of Mecca kept arguing over issues until ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ travelled to Medina; when he returned, his superiority over us became clear.”
Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar ibn Kaysān narrated:
“I remember that in the Umayyad period they would appoint a herald during the Ḥajj season to proclaim, ‘No one may issue fatwas to the people except ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ; if ʿAṭāʾ is absent, then ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Najīḥ.’”
Abū Ḥāzim al-Aʿraj said, “In giving legal verdicts, ʿAṭāʾ outstripped all the scholars of Mecca.”
(1) Al-Hafiz Abu Bakr Ibn Mardawayh recorded the report cited by Ibn Kathir, 1/215: al-Husayn b. Muhammad b. Bahram al-Makhzumi → Wahb b. Baqiyya → Khalid b. Abd Allah → Ibn Abi Layla, who said: “I entered upon Ata during Ramadan while he was eating. He told me that Ibn Abbas said: The verse wa-ala alladhina yutiqoonahu fidyatun taʿamu miskin (‘For those who can only fast with hardship, a ransom—feeding one poor person’) abrogated the previous ruling, except for the very aged; if such a person wishes, he may feed one poor person for every day.”
Al-Bukhari transmits in his Sahih, 8/135 (Tafsir of surah al-Baqarah) through Amr b. Dinar, from Ata, who heard Ibn Abbas recite the same verse and remark: “It is not abrogated; it applies to the elderly man or woman who cannot fast, so they must feed one needy person per day.”
Ibn Hajar notes that yutiqoonahu is read with an open ta and a doubled waw, in the passive form derived from tawwaqa (pattern of qatʿa); this is also the reading of Ibn Masud.
Al-Nasaʾi relates, via Ibn Abi Nujayh from Amr b. Dinar, the wording yutawwaqoonahu, glossed as yukallafunahu (“they are charged with it”), i.e. they are required to bear its hardship.
Abu Dawud (no. 2318) and al-Tabari, 3/427, narrate through Said b. Jubayr from Ibn Abbas: “The verse was a concession for the elderly man and woman who are still capable of fasting but prefer not to: they may break the fast and feed one poor person per day. The same ruling applies to the pregnant and nursing woman who fear”—Abu Dawud adds: for their children—“they may break the fast and offer the same feeding.” The chain is sound.