as did Ibn ʿUlayyah, Ibn Wahb, Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith, Hammām ibn Yaḥyā, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus, Ibn Idrīs, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Umawī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Muḥammad ibn Ḥarb al-Abrash, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah, Wakīʿ, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, Hishām ibn Yūsuf, Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad al-Aʿwar, Abū Usāmah, Rawḥ, Abū ʿĀṣim, al-Khuraibī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rajāʾ al-Makkī, ʿAbd al-Razzaq ibn Hammām, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā, Ghundar, al-Anṣārī, ʿUthmān ibn al-Haytham the muʾadhdhin, Yaḥyā ibn Sulaym al-Ṭāʾifī, Muḥammad ibn Bakr al-Bursānī, and many others besides.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad said: I asked my father, “Who was the first to compile books?” He replied, “Ibn Jurayj and Ibn Abī ʿArūbah.”
ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī narrated from ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Hammām, from Ibn Jurayj, who said:
“I came to ʿAṭāʾ, intending to pursue this discipline, while ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr was with him. Ibn ʿUmayr said to me, ‘Have you read the Qur’an?’ I answered, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Then go and read it, and only afterwards seek knowledge.’ So I went away, and after some time had passed I had read the Qur’an. I then returned to ʿAṭāʾ while ʿAbd Allāh was still with him. He asked, ‘Have you studied al-farīḍah (the laws of inheritance)?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Learn al-farīḍah, and then seek knowledge.’ So I set about learning al-farīḍah and then came back. He said, ‘Now you may seek knowledge.’ I therefore remained in the company of ʿAṭāʾ for seventeen years.”
I say: Someone who stayed with ʿAṭāʾ that long would, in all probability, have seen Abū al-Tufayl al-Kinānī in Mecca; yet we have heard no such report, nor found a single narration from him traced back to a Companion.
ʿAbd al-Razzaq transmitted from Ibn Jurayj, who said: “I attended ʿAṭāʾ for eighteen years, and he used to spend the night in the mosque for twenty years.”
Ibn ʿUyaynah said: “I heard Ibn Jurayj say, ‘No one has committed knowledge to writing the way I have.’”
He also said: “After finishing with ʿAṭāʾ, I sat with ʿAmr ibn Dīnār for nine years.”
Hamzah ibn Bahrām narrated from Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAmr al-Makkī, who said: “I said to ʿAṭāʾ…”