so I traced his narrations, copied the manuscripts exactly as they stood, and pursued—through higher-level chains—whatever I could not locate among the early transmitters. I found him reliable and trustworthy; however, he was a mudallis. He practised tadlīs in reports traced to ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, Shuʿbah and Mālik, inserting material he had actually taken from the likes of Mujāshiʿ ibn ʿAmr, al-Sarī ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, ʿUmar ibn Mūsā al-Maytamī and their ilk. By such tadlīs he attributed to those reputable scholars what he had only heard from weak transmitters reporting from them. He would say, “ʿUbayd Allāh said…,” or “Mālik said…,” so people wrote: “from Baqiyyah, from ʿUbayd Allāh” and “from Baqiyyah, from Mālik,” while the feeble intermediary vanished. The fabricated report thus clung to Baqiyyah, and the forger in the middle escaped detection. (1)

Ibn Maʿīn nevertheless declared him reliable.

Sulaymān ibn Muḥammad al-Khuzaʿī in Damascus narrated to us: Hishām ibn Khālid narrated to us: Baqiyyah narrated to us, from Ibn Jurayj, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “Whoever persistently combs his eyebrow with a comb will be spared from plague.” (2)

Through the same chain, from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “When one of you has intercourse with his wife, let him not look at her private part, for that leads to blindness.” (3)

Through the same chain, he said—may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “Dust the writing tablet with earth and rinse it from the bottom, for that is more conducive to fulfilling one’s need.” (4)