Qatada Ibn Diama

Qatada b. Di'ama al-Sadusi of Basra, the imam and memoriser Abu al-Khattab; he narrated from Anas b. Malik, Sa'id b. al-Musayyab, Mu'adha, Abu al-Tufayl, and others, while Ma'mar, Ibn Abi Uruba, Shayban, Shu'ba, Aban b. Yazid, Abu Awana, Hammad b. Salama, and hosts besides narrated from him. Ma'mar says Qatada stayed with Sa'id b. al-Musayyab eight days and Sa'id told him "I have never seen an Iraqi with a better memory than Qatada", and Ibn al-Mahdi said "Qatada memorises better than fifty men like Humayd". ²

Qatada said "I never asked a narrator to repeat, and my ears never heard a thing without my heart grasping it", Ibn Sirin called him "the best memoriser of people", Ahmad b. Hanbal called him "most knowing in exegesis and in the scholars' disagreements", praised his memory and understanding at length and said "you will hardly find his like", Sufyan al-Thawri wished "would that there were in the world the like of Qatada", and Abu Amr b. al-Ala' called him among the most learned in genealogy. Despite his memory he was known for tadlis, and he was a chief in Arabic, philology, the battle-days of the Arabs, and genealogy. ³

He died at Wasit in the plague of 118 AH — also said 117 — at fifty-seven years of age. ³