Ata ibn Abi Rabah

Ata ibn Abi Rabah (Abu Muhammad al-Qurashi) was one of the most respected jurists and hadith transmitters of the generation called the Tabi'un — the "Successors," who knew the Prophet Muhammad's Companions but not the Prophet himself. He is best remembered as the mufti (jurist authorized to issue legal opinions, fatwas) of Mecca during the late Umayyad period.

He was of humble, non-Arab origin: a mawla, or client, descended from a freedman, and tradition describes his family as Nubian. Reports hold that he was both lame and, in later life, blind — details cited to show that learning, in this telling, outranked lineage or physical condition. Sources say he was raised in Mecca, where he eventually taught in the Sacred Mosque and was sought out for legal rulings; one widely repeated report has him performing the hajj pilgrimage more than seventy times.

As a transmitter he is reported to have heard hadith from numerous Companions, among them Ibn Abbas, Abu Hurayra, Jabir ibn Abd Allah, and Aisha; his pupil Ibn Jurayj preserved a large body of his teaching. Modern scholarship (Harald Motzki) treats him as a pivotal figure for reconstructing the earliest Meccan jurisprudence.

His death year is genuinely uncertain: classical and modern sources variously give 113, 114, 115, or 117 AH, with 114 AH (732 CE) most commonly named and some reference works preferring c. 115 AH (733 CE). All agree he died in Mecca, at an advanced age.