- ʿAtāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib al-Thaqafī, their client, the Kufan (4)
The imam, ḥafiz, and hadith master of Kūfa, Abū al-Sāʾib.
Others said his kunyah was Abū Zayd, and it has also been reported as Abū Yazīd and Abū Muḥammad al-Kufī.
He narrated from his father, al-Sāʾib ibn Zayd—though some say the name was Ibn Yazīd, and others say Ibn Mālik al-Thaqafī, their client.
He also transmitted from Anas ibn Mālik—yet it is not established that he heard directly from him, for some chains insert Yazīd al-Raqāshī between the two—and from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Awfā, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, Abū Wāʾil, Murrah al-Ṭayyib, ʿAmr ibn Maymūn al-Awdī, Mujāhid, Abū (1) al-Bakhtarī al-Ṭāʾī, Dharr ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Buraydah, ʿIkrimah, al-Ḥasan, Abū Ẓabyān, Sālim al-Barrād, and many others.
He was counted among the leading scholars, though his memory declined somewhat toward the end of his life.
Those who reported from him include Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid—who was of the same generation—al-Thawrī, Ibn Jurayj, Abū Jaʿfar al-Rāzī, Rūḥ ibn al-Qāsim, the two Ḥammāds, Mūsā ibn Aʿyan, Abū ʿAwānah, Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, Shuʿbah, Sharīk, ʿUbaydah ibn Ḥumayd, Ibn Fuḍayl, Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Zāʾidah, Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah, Ibn ʿUyaynah, Hushaym, Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī, ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim, Ibn ʿUlayyah, and many others.
Ibn ʿUyaynah said: Some of our companions informed me that Abū Isḥāq was asked about ʿAtāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, and he replied, “He is one of the survivors.”