Hammām transmitted from Qatādah, who said:
Sulaymān ibn Hishām once asked me, “Is there anyone left in the city—meaning Mecca?”
I replied, “Yes, the most senior scholar in the whole Arabian Peninsula.”
He said, “Who is that?”
I answered, “ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ.”

Ibn Abī ʿArūbah narrated—from Qatādah, as the transmitter thought—that he said:
“When these four are on hand, I pay no heed to anyone else and do not care who disagrees with them: al-Ḥasan, Ibn al-Musayyib, Ibrāhīm, and ʿAṭāʾ. These are the imams of the lands.”

Ḍamrah related from ʿUthmān ibn ʿAṭāʾ:
“ʿAṭāʾ was dark, exceedingly dark, with scarcely any hair on his head save a few strands. He was eloquent when he spoke, and whatever ruling he gave in the Ḥijāz was accepted from him.”

Ibn ʿUyaynah reported from Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah:
“ʿAṭāʾ would remain silent for long stretches, but when he spoke it seemed to us that he was divinely supported.”

Aslam al-Minqarī said:
“A Bedouin came seeking guidance and was directed to Saʿīd ibn Jubayr. The Bedouin kept asking, ‘Where is Abū Muḥammad?’ Saʿīd replied, ‘We have nothing to say here in the presence of ʿAṭāʾ.’”

ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Ḥimmānī narrated from Abū Ḥanīfah:
“Among all whom I have met, I have never seen anyone better than ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, nor have I met anyone more dishonest than Jābir al-Juʿfī. Whatever issue I put to him, he would cite a hadith for it and claim that he possessed such-and-such thousands of hadiths attributed to the Prophet ﷺ that originated from my own opinion, which the Prophet never voiced (1).”

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Dībāj (2) said, “I have never seen a mufti better than ʿAṭāʾ; indeed…"