Al-Waqidī said: “Dāwūd ibn Jubayr narrated to me (1): I heard Ibn al-Musayyib say, ‘Ibn ʿAbbās is the most knowledgeable of people.’ (2)

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād also narrated to me, from his father, from ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah, who said: ‘Ibn ʿAbbās had outstripped the people (3) in a number of traits: in knowledge of what had gone before, in the jurisprudential insight his opinion provided when needed, in forbearance, in lineage (4), and in generosity. I have never seen anyone more learned than he in the hadiths of the Prophet ﷺ, nor in the legal rulings of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān; no one whose judgment was sounder; no one more versed in poetry, in Arabic, in the exegesis of the Quran, in arithmetic, or in the laws of inheritance. I know of no one, regarding past events, whose opinion was sharper or whose counsel was more penetrating when people required it. He would devote one day to nothing but jurisprudence, another day to nothing but exegesis, another to the military campaigns, another to poetry, and another to the Days of the Arabs. I never saw a scholar sit with him without humbling himself before him, nor a questioner approach him without finding knowledge in his possession. He added, “I would sometimes memorize a poem of thirty lines from his very mouth as he recited it.” (5)

Hishām ibn ʿUrwah reported from his father: “I have never seen anyone like Ibn ʿAbbās.”

ʿAṭāʾ said: “I never witnessed a gathering nobler, richer in jurisprudence, or more awe-inspiring [in dignity] than the gathering of Ibn ʿAbbās. The experts on the Quran would ask him, the specialists in Arabic would ask him, the poets present would ask him, and each of them would depart into a wide valley of understanding.” (6)

Al-Waqidī also said: “Bishr ibn Abī Muslim narrated to me, from Ibn Ṭāwūs, from his father, who said: ‘Ibn ʿAbbās towered (7) above the people in knowledge just as a lofty date-palm towers over the low-growing shrubs.’ (8)

Layth ibn Abī Sulaym said: ‘I asked Ṭāwūs, “Why have you attached yourself to this young man”—meaning Ibn ʿAbbās—“and left the senior Companions?” He replied, “I have seen seventy of the Companions; whenever they disagreed about something, they would adopt his view.” (9)

Ṭāwūs also said: ‘I have never seen anyone more learned in jurisprudence than he. No one ever disagreed with him without his guiding that person until he accepted Ibn ʿAbbās’s position.’

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Abū Nuʿaym, and others transmitted from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from