—may the intercession of Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—on the Day of Resurrection never reach me if I do not profess allegiance to both of them and declare myself free of their enemy (1).
Hafs ibn Ghayath said: I heard Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad say, “There is no intercession from which I hope to gain anything for myself except that I hope for the like of it from the intercession of Abū Bakr, for he is my forefather twice over.”
ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn Yaḥyā al-Zuhri, together with a number of others, wrote to me, saying: “Dāʾūd ibn Aḥmad informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar the judge informed us; ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAlī informed us; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dāraqutnī narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Adamī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥunaynī narrated to us; Makhlad ibn Abī Quraysh al-Ṭaḥḥān narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Hamdānī narrated that Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad came to them while they were preparing to leave Medina and said:
‘If Allah so wills, you are among the righteous people of your region. Convey this message from me: Whoever claims that I am an infallible imam whose obedience is obligatory, I disavow him; and whoever claims that I repudiate Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, I disavow him.’
And, through al-Dāraqutnī: Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār narrated to us; Abū Yaḥyā Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Rāzī narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭanāfisī narrated to us; Ḥanān ibn Sadīr narrated, ‘I heard Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, and he was asked about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. He replied:
‘You are asking me about two men who have already eaten of the fruits of Paradise.’ (2)