so much so that Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ said of him, “Qatādah was among the people best versed in genealogies.”

Al-Qifṭī (1) reports in his History that two men from the Umayyad household once disputed over a single line of poetry; they would dispatch a special courier to Iraq in order to consult Qatādah about it.

Ibn al-Madīnī said: “I said to Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, ‘ʿAbd al-Raḥmān maintains: “Leave anyone who is a leading figure in an innovation and calls others to it.”’
He replied, ‘Then what do you do with Qatādah, Ibn Abī Rawwād, ʿUmar ibn Dharr…,’ and he named a number of men.
Yaḥyā then added, ‘If he were to abandon this whole class of transmitters, he would have to abandon a great many narrations.’
He also said, ‘ʿAmr ibn Dīnār is more firmly reliable than Qatādah.’

Yaḥyā further related, ‘Qatādah once expelled Ḥayyān al-Aʿraj from the room.’
I asked, ‘Why did he expel him?’
He said, ‘Because he mentioned ʿUthmān—may Allah be pleased with him.’
I then asked Yaḥyā, ‘Who told you this?’
He answered, ‘Our companions.’
And I heard Yaḥyā say on the authority of Shuʿbah: ‘I once mentioned to Qatādah the hadith about Adam and Moses disputing. He retorted, “Are you out of your mind? What is this? Al-Ḥasan used to narrate it!”’

Ibn al-Bukhārī informed us by written permission; Ibn Ṭabarzadh informed us; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Anmāṭī informed us; al-Ṣarīfīnī informed us; Ibn Ḥabābah informed us; al-Baghawī told us; Hudbah told us; Ḥammād ibn Salamah related to us, from Ḥumayd, from al-Ḥasan, from Jundub—or someone else—that:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Adam met Moses. Moses said, ‘O Adam! You are the one whom Allah created with His own hand, placed in His Garden, and made His angels prostrate to; yet you committed what you committed and expelled your offspring from the Garden!’
Adam replied, ‘And you are Moses, whom Allah chose with His message, spoke to directly, and gave the Torah. Was I created first, or was the decree written first?’
Moses said, ‘Rather, the decree came first.’
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ concluded, ‘Thus Adam won the argument against Moses.’”

This narration was also transmitted by Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythamah, from Ḥaramiyy ibn Ḥafṣ, and by Abū