Among the notable figures who died in that year were:
ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ (1) al-Fihrī, the client of that clan, Abū Muḥammad al-Makkī, one of the foremost, reliable, and eminent Successors (Tābiʿīn).
It is said that he met two hundred Companions. Ibn Saʿd (2) reports: “I heard some of the scholars say that ʿAṭāʾ was dark-skinned, one-eyed, flat-nosed, with a disabled hand and a limp; he later became totally blind. Even so, he was trustworthy, a jurist, a scholar, and a prolific transmitter of hadith.”
Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir and others declared, “No one living in his day was more knowledgeable of the rites of pilgrimage than he.” Some added, “He performed seventy pilgrimages, lived one hundred years, and, toward the end of his life, would break the fast in Ramadan because of old age and weakness; he would pay the expiation for doing so and would apply the verse, wa ʿalā alladhīna yuṭīqūnahu fidyatun ṭaʿāmu miskīn (And upon those who can fast only with difficulty is a ransom: feeding one poor person) [Al-Baqarah 2:184].”
During the days of Minā a herald of the Umayyads would proclaim: “No one is to issue legal rulings on the pilgrimage except ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ.”
Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir said, “Of all those I have met, I found no one more learned in jurisprudence than he!” Al-Awzāʿī added, “On the day he died, ʿAṭāʾ was the most esteemed person on earth in the people’s eyes.” Ibn Jurayj (3) remarked, “ʿAṭāʾ’s prayer-mat remained in the mosque for twenty years, and he was among the people most excellent in prayer.”
Qatādah said, “Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, al-Ḥasan, Ibrāhīm, and ʿAṭāʾ—these were the imams of the various regions.” ʿAṭāʾ himself said, “A man will relate a hadith to me, and I listen to him as though I had never heard it, when in fact I heard it before he was even born; yet I let him think I am hearing it from him for the first time.” In another report he said, “I have it memorized better than he does, yet I give him the impression that I have never heard it.” (4)
The majority maintain that he died in this very year—may Allah have mercy on him. Allah knows best. (5)