Abū Hilāl, reporting from Matar al-Warrāq, said: “Qatādah remained a student of knowledge right up to his death.”

Abū Hilāl also related that some people asked Qatādah, “Should we write down what we hear from you?”
He replied, “And what should stop you from writing, when the All-Subtle, the All-Aware has informed you that He Himself writes, saying, ‘Its knowledge rests with my Lord, in a Record’ (Tā Hā 52).”
Abū Hilāl added: I heard him say, “Learning in one’s youth is like engraving on stone.”

Bakr ibn Khunays transmitted, from Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr, from Qatādah:
“One chapter of knowledge a man preserves—for the rectification of himself and of those who come after him—is better than a whole year of worship.”

Abū ʿAwānah narrated from Qatādah that in the codex of al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās the verse reads:
‘We sent down, with the laden clouds, water in heavy torrents.’ (1)

Bishr ibn ʿUmar reported that Hammām said, from Qatādah:
“It used to be said, ‘Seldom does a hypocrite keep vigil at night.’”

Zayd ibn Ḥubbāb, on the authority of al-Wazīr ibn ʿImrān, said: “Whenever Qatādah was invited to a meal, he would loosen his buttons.”

Abū Hilāl, from Qatādah, said: “This doctrine of irjāʾ (postponement) only arose after the defeat of Ibn al-Ashʿath.”

Ḥanẓalah ibn Abī Sufyān said: “I used to see Ṭāwūs; whenever Qatādah approached him, he would run away. Qatādah was suspected of holding Qadarī views.”

Abū Salamah al-Minqarī reported that Abān al-ʿAṭṭār said:
“When Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr was mentioned in Qatādah’s presence, he remarked, ‘Since when has knowledge been with the fishmongers?’
Later, when Qatādah was mentioned in Yaḥyā’s presence, he said, ‘The people of Basra will remain in trouble as long as Qatādah lives among them.’”

I (the author) say: “The disparaging remarks of contemporaries about one another are to be folded away and not transmitted. If they are mentioned, the hadith scholar must examine them carefully, for if…"