to look at the most prodigious memoriser among those we have met, let him look at Qatadah.

Jarir, reporting from Mughirah, said that al-Shaʿbi remarked, “Qatadah is like a man who gathers firewood in the dark.”

Yahya ibn Yusuf al-Zimmi said: Ibn ʿUyaynah narrated to us: ʿAbd al-Karim al-Jawzi said to me, “Abu Muhammad, do you know what ‘a night-wood gatherer’ is?” I replied, “No.” He said, “It is a man who goes out at night to collect firewood. As he gropes about he puts his hand on a viper, which kills him. I have coined this parable for the seeker of knowledge: if he carries more knowledge than he can bear, his very knowledge will kill him just as the viper killed the night-wood gatherer.”

Al-Saʿiq ibn Hazn said: Zayd Abu ʿAbd al-Wahid narrated to us, “I heard Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib say, ‘No Iraqi more retentive than Qatadah ever came to me.’”

Ibn ʿUlayyah, from Rawh ibn al-Qasim, from Matar, reported: “Whenever Qatadah heard a hadith he would snatch it up instantly, taking in both the great and the small ⦗1⦘ until he had committed it to memory.”

ʿAffan said: Husam ibn Miṣakk presented Qatadah with a pair of sandals. Qatadah began to shake them—they were so supple that they bent with ease—and he remarked, “You can recognise a man’s foolishness from the gift he brings.”

ʿAffan also said: Qays ibn al-Rabiʿ told us, “When Qatadah arrived in Kufah we wanted to visit him, but someone said to us, ‘He detests ʿAli—may Allah ennoble his face.’ So we did not go. Later we were told, ‘He is the furthest of people from such a claim,’ and we then took knowledge from a man who narrated on his authority.”

Al-Baghawi, in his biographical notice on Qatadah, relates: Ibrahim ibn Haniʾ told us; Ahmad ibn Hanbal told us; ʿAbd al-Razzāq told us, from Maʿmar, who said:

“Qatadah said to Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib, ‘Abu al-Naḍr, take the mushaf.’ He then recited ⦗2⦘ Surah al-Baqarah before him without missing a single letter. When he finished he asked, ‘Abu al-Naḍr, have I perfected it?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ Qatadah then said, ‘I have the scroll of Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah more firmly memorised than I have Surah al-Baqarah.’ And that scroll had been read to him…"