He said: The prominent disciples of Ibn Waḍḍāḥ would not sit to hear hadith from him because of the estrangement that existed between the two parties…

He was born in the month of Ramadan in the year 201 AH. (1)

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim al-Dimashqī remarked, “No fully-sourced hadith with an unbroken isnād from Baqī has reached me.” (2)
I say: even so, he prepared for him an excellent biographical notice in his History.

Imām Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm the Ẓāhirī said, “I am absolutely certain that nothing has ever been composed in Islam like the Tafsīr of Baqī—not even the commentary of Muḥammad ibn Jarīr, nor any other.” (3)

He also related: “Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Umawī, the ruler of al-Andalus, was a lover of the sciences and well-informed about them. When Baqī entered al-Andalus carrying the Musannaf of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah and it was read aloud before him, a group of the People of Opinion objected to the juristic disagreements it contained, found them repugnant, stirred up the populace against him, and prevented him from reading it. The ruler Muḥammad therefore summoned both Baqī and his opponents, examined the entire book himself, section by section, until he reached the end, and then said to the librarian, ‘This is a work our library cannot do without; make sure it is copied for us.’

“He then said to Baqī, ‘Publish your knowledge and relate what you possess,’ and he forbade them to trouble him.”

Aslam ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrates: “Baqī ibn Makhlad told us:

‘After I had compiled my Musnad, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā and his brother Isḥāq came to me and said, “We have been informed that you have produced a Musnad in which you placed Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī and Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr at the beginning while relegating our father to the end.”

‘I replied, “As for my giving precedence to Abū Muṣʿab, it is because the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said—”’