Ibrāhīm al-Harbī said, “Al-Wāqidī was the people’s trustee with regard to the Muslims; he surpassed everyone in knowledge of Islam. As for the pre-Islamic era (jahiliyyah), he knew nothing about it.” (1)

Mūsā ibn Hārūn reported: “I heard Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī mention al-Wāqidī and swear, ‘By Allah, we have never seen anyone like him.’”

Al-Dararwardī—when al-Wāqidī was brought up—remarked, “He is the Commander of the Believers in ḥadith.” This was narrated by Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī, from ʿUbayd ibn Abī al-Faraj, from Yaʿqūb, the client of the family of ʿUbayd Allāh, from him. (2)

Al-Wāqidī himself said, “My writing tablets would get lost, yet they would be returned because they were so famous in Madinah. People used to say, ‘These are the tablets of Ibn Wāqid.’” (3)

In his own time al-Wāqidī enjoyed remarkable prestige and wielded a striking influence over people’s hearts. Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī even declared, “Are we being asked about al-Wāqidī? Whatever benefit the shaykhs and the ḥadith afforded us came only through al-Wāqidī.” (4)

Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī said, “Someone who heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak told me that he said, ‘Whenever I arrived in Madinah, no one benefited me or directed me to the scholars except al-Wāqidī.’” (5)

Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Dimashqī related: “Suwayd ibn Dāwūd narrated to me, saying, ‘We were in the presence of…’”