He would recite “taqū minhum tuqah” (that you may show caution toward them) [Quran 3:28]. Reported by Abu Nu‘aym in al-Hilya (3/312–313), including all the material enclosed in parentheses therein. Imam Aḥmad said: “Sufyān ibn ‘Uyaynah narrated to us, who reported from Ismā‘īl ibn Umayyah, that ‘Aṭā’ used to observe prolonged silences, and when he spoke, it seemed to us as if he were divinely inspired.” (Al-Hilya 3/313.) On the verse “Neither buying nor selling should divert them from the remembrance of Allah” [Quran 24:37], he commented: “Neither purchase nor sale ought to distract them from the rights of Allah the Exalted, which He has enjoined upon them to perform at their appointed times and seasons.” (Al-Hilya 3/312.) Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī related: “I saw ‘Aṭā’ circumambulating his house, and he said to his attendant: ‘Stop and record for me five things: 1. Divine decree (qadr): its good and its evil, its sweetness and its bitterness are from Allah, and the servants have neither will nor delegation in it; 2. The people of our qibla are believers, and their blood and wealth are inviolable except by their due rights; 3. Fighting the rebellious faction with hands, feet, and weapons’—in the Qur’an version; in al-Hilya: ‘with hands and feet, not weapons’; 4. Bearing witness that the Kharijites are in error.” (Al-Hilya 3/312.) Ibn ‘Umar exclaimed: “You collect legal questions for me, and ‘Aṭā’ ibn Abī Rābah is among you?!” (Same source 3/311.) Mu‘ādh ibn Sa‘d reported: “I was seated with ‘Aṭā’, and he was narrating a ḥadīth when a man interrupted him. ‘Aṭā’ grew angry and said: ‘What are these manners? What are these dispositions? By Allah, I hear the ḥadīth from the man, and I know it better than he does, yet I let him think I do not!’” (Al-Hilya 3/311.) ‘Aṭā’ used to say: “It is better to see a devil in one’s home than to see a cushion, for it invites one to sleep.” Uthmān ibn Abī Shaybah narrated from ‘Alī ibn al-Madīnī, from Yaḥyā ibn Sa‘īd, from Ibn Jarīr: “After ‘Aṭā’ grew old and weak, he would stand for prayer and recite two hundred verses of Sūrat al-Baqarah while remaining fixed in place.” Reported by Abu Nu‘aym in al-Hilya (1/377; 3/148; 3/310); also mentioned by al-Dhahabī in Siyar A‘lam al-Nubalā’ (5/87). Ibn ‘Uyaynah said: “I told Ibn Jarīr, ‘I have never seen an imam like you!’ He replied, ‘If only you had seen ‘Aṭā’.’” (Al-Hilya 3/310; also in Ibn al-Jawzī, Sifat al-Safwah 2/213.) ‘Aṭā’ also said: “Allah does not love the young man who wears the customary garment; He turns away from him until he discards it.” It was said: “A servant should be like a patient: he needs nourishment, but not every kind of food suits him.” He further remarked: “Supplication blinds the eye of the wise, so how much more the ignorant? And do not envy anyone for a blessing he possesses, for you do not know what will become of him after death.” (1) His biography appears in: Tabaqāt Ibn Sa‘d (5/320); Tārīkh Khalīfa (p. 349); Tabaqāt Khalīfa (p. 255); al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (1/183).