Abu Ishaq al-Jawzajani said, “Al-Waqidi was never convincing. I mentioned the news of his death to Ahmad the very day he died in Baghdad, and he replied, ‘I have been using his books as backing sheets for other volumes for some time now.’ (1)

Al-Bukhari remarked, “I do not possess a single letter from al-Waqidi, nor have I recognised any of his hadith; therefore I cannot accept him.”

Abu Dawud said, “I do not record his hadith. I have no doubt that he would merely transfer reports. Whenever al-Waqidi’s name appears in a book, his true state becomes apparent. In the accounts of the conquest of Yemen and the story of al-ʿAnsi he narrated reports from al-Zuhri that are not part of al-Zuhri’s corpus.”

Ahmad, for his part, would not cite even a single word from him. (2)

Al-Nasa’i said, “Those who are known for fabricating hadith about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ are four: Ibn Abi Yahya in Medina; al-Waqidi in Baghdad; Muqatil ibn Sulayman in Khurasan; and Muhammad ibn Saʿid in Syria.”

Abu Zurʿah stated, “People have abandoned the hadith of al-Waqidi.” (3)

I say: Al-Waqidi has nothing in the Six Canonical Books except a single hadith in Ibn Majah (4): “Ibn Abi Shaybah narrated to us; one of our shaykhs narrated to us…,” yet even Ibn Majah did not dare