al-Aʿmash, Mukhawwal ibn Rāshid, Ḥarb ibn Surayj, al-Qāsim ibn al-Faḍl al-Hudhdānī, al-Awzāʿī, and others.

His narration from al-Ḥasan and ʿĀʾishah is recorded in Sunan al-Nasāʾī, but the chain there is broken. His report from Samurah is found in Sunan Abī Dāwūd.

He was one of those who combined knowledge with practice, nobility with honor, reliability with composure; he was fit for the Caliphate. He is counted among the Twelve Imams whom the Imāmī Shīʿah venerate, maintaining that they are infallible and fully versed in every aspect of the religion.

Yet infallibility belongs only to the angels and the prophets. Everyone else may be right or wrong; we accept some of his words and leave some—apart from the Prophet ﷺ, for he alone is infallible, supported by revelation.

Abū Jaʿfar became known as al-Bāqir, from the verb baqara al-ʿilm—“to split open knowledge,” uncovering both its roots and its subtleties.

Indeed, Abū Jaʿfar was an independent jurist, a reciter of the Book of Allah, a man of great standing. Even so, in Qurʾanic expertise he did not reach the rank of Ibn Kathīr and the like; in jurisprudence he did not equal Abū al-Zinād or Rabīʿah; and in memorization and mastery of the sunnah he fell short of Qatādah and Ibn Shihāb. We neither flatter him nor wrong him; we love him for Allah’s sake for the many qualities of perfection that gathered in him.

Ibn Fuḍayl narrated from Sālim ibn Abī Ḥafṣah:

“I asked Abū Jaʿfar and his son Jaʿfar about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, and they said to me, ‘O Sālim, be devoted to them both and disavow their enemy, for the two of them were Imams of guidance.’ (1)

Sālim was openly Shiʿi, yet he spread this true statement—for only a person of virtue recognizes the merit of people of virtue. Likewise, its transmitter Ibn Fuḍayl was a trustworthy Shiʿi. May Allah cause the Shīʿah of our own time to stumble—how deeply they have immersed themselves in ignorance and falsehood!—so they set about reviling