Jurayj narrated from Abu al-Zubayr, from Jabir, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ: “The Zoroastrians of this Ummah are the Qadariyyah.” (1)

ʿAṭiyyah ibn Baqiyyah said, “My father related to us, from Muḥammad ibn Ziyad, from Abu Umāmah, from the Prophet ﷺ: ‘The front-runners are four: I am the front-runner of the Arabs; Bilāl is the front-runner of the Abyssinians; Suhayb is the front-runner of the Byzantines; and Salmān is the front-runner of the Persians.’ (2)”

This ḥadith is objectionable (munkar) and solitary (fard). The stronger position is that Bilāl was not Abyssinian, and as for Suhayb, he was an Arab of the tribe of al-Namir ibn Qāsiṭ.

It is authentically reported through several chains that Ibn al-Mubārak said, “Baqiyyah is dearer to me than Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh.”

Muslim (3) also transmitted—through Ibn Rāhwayh, from an informant of his—that Ibn al-Mubārak said, “Baqiyyah is an excellent man, were it not that he gives kunyas in place of personal names and personal names in place of kunyas. For a long time he narrated to us from ‘Abu Saʿīd al-Wuḥāḍī’; when we investigated, we found that he was in fact ʿAbd al-Quddūs.”

Abu Dāwūd reported that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “Baqiyyah has transmitted objectionable reports from ʿUbayd Allāh.”

ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd said, “I asked Yaḥyā, ‘Which of the two do you prefer: Baqiyyah or Muḥammad…’”