Al-Dāraqutnī said, “He is reliable.”

It is related from al-Sarī ibn Yaḥyā al-Tamīmī that al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār met Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī. Isḥāq remarked, “Abū ʿAbd Allāh, you have written a work and called it Kitāb al-Nasab (The Book of Genealogies), yet it is really a book of historical anecdotes.”

Al-Zubayr retorted, “And you, Abū Muḥammad, have composed a work you entitled Kitāb al-Aghānī (The Book of Songs), whereas it is in truth Kitāb al-Maghānī —the Book of Tavern-Haunts.” (1)

Al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Qāsim al-Kawkabī said: When al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār arrived in Baghdad, Abū Ḥāmid—the mustamli who repeated his words to the audience—addressed him: “Whom have you mentioned, O son of the Disciple of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?” The greeting delighted him. (2)

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Tārikhī narrated: Ibn Abī Ṭāhir recited to me, of his own composition, these verses about al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār:

He never said “No,” save in his declaration of faith,
And never did his tongue run with aught but “Yes.”
Between the Disciple and the Truthful lies his lineage,
And the Messenger of Allah himself shares with him a tie of kinship. (3)

Al-Kawkabī also transmitted: Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Marastānī told us, saying: al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār related, “My sister’s daughter once said to our household, ‘My uncle is the best of men toward his family; he takes neither a co-wife nor a concubine.’ ” (4)

He added, “A woman will say, ‘By Allah, these books are harder on me than three co-wives!’ ” (5)