Al-Niʿālī informed us; Ibn Bishrān informed us; Ibn al-Bakhtarī informed us; Aḥmad ibn al-Khalīl narrated to us; al-Wāqidī narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated, from Hammām, from Abū Hurayrah, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade reviling Asʿad al-Ḥimyarī. He added, “He was the first person to drape the House (i.e., the Kaʿba).” (1)

It is well established that al-Wāqidī is weak. He is consulted only for the expeditions and historical reports, and we cite his traditions without building arguments upon them. In questions of legal rulings, however, he ought not be mentioned at all. The Six Books, the Musnad of Aḥmad, and most of those who compile works on legal judgments allow themselves some latitude by including ḥadiths of weak—indeed sometimes abandoned—narrators, and yet they never transmit anything from Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar (al-Wāqidī). In my estimation, despite his weakness, his reports are still worthy of being written down and transmitted, for I do not suspect him of deliberate fabrication. Those who have discarded him altogether have gone to excess in certain respects, just as no weight should be given to the endorsements of those who declared him reliable—Yazīd, Abū ʿUbayd, al-Ṣāghānī, al-Ḥarbī, Maʿn, and a full tally of ten ḥadith scholars—because consensus today holds that he is not an authoritative source and that his reports are counted among the tenuous ones.

173 – Abū ʿĀmir ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAmr al-Qaysī * (ʿ)
The Imām, ḥāfiẓ, and leading ḥadith authority of Basra: Abū ʿĀmir ʿAbd al-Malik ibn