I say: his narrations fall within the grade of hasan.

172 – Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Wāqid al-Aslamī, their freedman—better known as al-Wāqidī, the Medinan judge, the author of numerous works on the military campaigns—was a renowned scholar, an imām, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, and, despite his weakness, one of the great storehouses of knowledge; on this point the critics are unanimous.

He was born sometime after 120 AH and embarked on the pursuit of knowledge in the early 140s. He heard ḥadith from the younger tābiʿūn and those who followed them in the Ḥijāz, Syria, and elsewhere.

Among those from whom he transmitted are: Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, Ibn Jurayj, Thawr ibn Yazīd, Maʿmar ibn Rāshid, Usāmah ibn Zayd al-Laythī, Kathīr ibn Zayd, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Jaʿfar, al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān, Ibn Abī Dhīb, Aflah ibn Ḥumayd, al-Awzāʿī, Hishām ibn al-Ghāz, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Sabrah, Mālik, Fulayḥ ibn Sulaymān, and a host of others from the rank-and-file of the Medinans.

He amassed a prodigious collection and poured it forth, but in so doing he mingled the chaff with the choice grain and strung base beads alongside priceless pearls.