recorded from al-Khurasani in Sahih al-Bukhari.
Ibn Hibban said: “His origin is Balkh, and he is counted among the Basrans. He was only called al-Khurasani because he travelled to Khurasan, stayed there for a while, and then returned to Iraq. He was one of God’s righteous servants, but he had a poor memory and made many mistakes; when those mistakes became numerous in his narrations, reliance on him was abandoned.”
I say: This judgment warrants reconsideration.
ʿUthman ibn ʿAtaʾ reported from his father: “The deed in which I have the greatest confidence for myself is spreading knowledge. My father used to sit with the poor, teaching them and relating hadith to them.”
Yazid ibn Samurah said: “I heard ʿAtaʾ al-Khurasani say, ‘The gatherings of remembrance are the gatherings where the lawful and the forbidden are discussed.’”
Ismaʿil ibn ʿAyyash said: “I asked ʿAtaʾ al-Khurasani, ‘From where do you earn your living?’ He replied, ‘From the generosity of brothers and the stipends of the ruler.’”
ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Yazid ibn Jabir said: “We used to go on military expeditions with ʿAtaʾ al-Khurasani, and we would camp…”
…and the manumission contract (mukataba).
Al-Ismaʿili reports that ʿAli ibn al-Madini related—in his commentary on Ibn Jurayj—that Ibn Jurayj originally transmitted the chain as: “from ʿAtaʾ al-Khurāsani, from Ibn ʿAbbas.” Because the copyist grew tired of writing “al-Khurāsani” in every hadith, he eventually dropped it; later transmitters therefore assumed the narrator was ʿAtaʾ ibn Abi Rabah.
Al-Hafiz adds that this anecdote—cited by Salih ibn Ahmad from ʿAli ibn al-Madini and noted by Abu ʿAli al-Jayyani in Taqyid al-Muhmal—runs as follows: Ibn al-Madini said, “I heard Hisham ibn Yusuf narrate that Ibn Jurayj told him, ‘I asked ʿAtaʾ about the exegesis of al-Baqarah and Al ʿImran; then he said, “Spare me the rest.”’ Hisham continued, ‘After that, whenever Ibn Jurayj said, “ʿAtaʾ reported from Ibn ʿAbbas,” he meant ʿAtaʾ al-Khurāsani. We wrote the full name for a while, then we became weary’—that is, we stopped adding ‘al-Khurāsani.’”
Ibn al-Madini concludes: “I clarify this because Muhammad ibn Thawr used to narrate the chain simply as ‘from ʿAtaʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbas,’ so people thought the narrator was ʿAtaʾ ibn Abi Rabah.”
For the complete discussion, see the Introduction to Fath al-Bari, pp. 373–374.