the two Shaykhs, the two ministers of the Chosen One ﷺ, and they insist that the words attributed to al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq were merely taqiyyah (precautionary dissimulation).

Ishāq al-Azraq narrated from Bassām al-Ṣayrafī, who said:
“I asked Abū Jaʿfar about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. He replied, ‘By Allah, I am devoted to both of them, I seek forgiveness for them, and I have not met anyone from my household who was not likewise devoted to them.’ (1)

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl related:
“I and Abū Jaʿfar used to go regularly to Jābir, recording what we heard from him on tablets, and we were told that Abū Jaʿfar performed one hundred and fifty units of prayer every day and night.”

Al-Nasāʾī and others rank him among the jurists of the Tābiʿīn in Madinah, and the ḥadith masters unanimously accept Abū Jaʿfar’s reports as evidence.

Al-Qaṭīʿī said in his Fawāʾid: “Abū Muslim al-Kajjī told us, Abū ʿĀṣim told us, from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, who said: My father narrated to me that ʿUmar once said, ‘I do not know what to do with the Magians!’ Then ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf stood up and conveyed that the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Treat them according to the precedent set for the People of the Book.’ (2) This report is mursal.”

Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār said: “Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī was called Bāqir al-ʿIlm, and his mother was Umm ʿAbd Allāh, the daughter of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī.”

Concerning him al-Qurazī said: