confused in his later years (1); Ibn Jurayj and Qays ibn Saʿd therefore stopped narrating from him.

I say: By the remark “these two left him,” ʿAlī did not intend the usual technical abandonment. Rather, ʿAṭāʾ had grown old and his faculties had weakened, while the two had already taken what they needed from him—studied under him, acquired jurisprudence, and transmitted a great deal—so they simply ceased. That is what he meant by “they left him.” (2)

He was never really proficient in Arabic.

Al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAmr al-Ḥanafī related, through ʿAbd al-Quddūs from Ḥajjāj, that ʿAṭāʾ said, “I wish I were good at Arabic.” He was ninety years old at the time.

ʿAṭāʾ also said, “I still remember the killing of ʿUthmān.”

ʿUmar ibn Qays reported: I asked ʿAṭāʾ, “When were you born?” He replied, “Two years after ʿUthmān assumed the caliphate.”

Ibn Jurayj said: “I kept the company of ʿAṭāʾ for eighteen years. After he had become old and weak, he would still rise for prayer and, while standing, recite two hundred verses of al-Baqarah without leaning or moving in the least.”

ʿUmar ibn Dharr said: “I have never seen anyone like ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ. I never once saw him wearing a shirt, nor any garment worth five dirhams.”

Ibn Jurayj also said: “I heard ʿAṭāʾ say: ‘When the donkeys bray at night, say, “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan.”’” (3)

ʿAṭāʾ further said: “If I were entrusted with the public treasury, I would surely be trustworthy, yet I do not feel safe from my own soul…"