present—about Ibn ʿUqda. He replied, “All I really have is what I have heard about him: he was a wicked man.” (1)

With the same chain al-Barqānī related: “I asked Abū al-Ḥasan about Ibn ʿUqda, ‘What is the main grievance you hold against him?’ He answered, ‘His excessive circulation of objectionable and singular reports.’ (2)

Through this very isnād ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Naṣr told me: I heard Ḥamzah ibn Yūsuf say, I heard Abū ʿUmar ibn Ḥayyuwayh state: ‘Ibn ʿUqda used to sit in the Brāthā Mosque dictating invectives against the Companions—or, he said, against the Two Shaykhs—so I refuse to transmit anything from him.’ (3)

Abū Aḥmad Ibn ʿAdī remarked, “He is a man of learning, strong memory, and seniority in the craft. I saw the scholars of Baghdad speak ill of him; nevertheless, I eventually deemed his case sound and accepted him. I said, ‘Had I not bound myself to record everyone who has ever been criticised—without showing favouritism—I would not have mentioned him, because of the merit and knowledge he possesses.’ ” (4)

Even so, neither Ibn ʿAdī nor al-Khaṭīb produced any clearly reprehensible narration from him.

Ibn ʿAdī also noted, in his biography of Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-ʿAṭāridī, that Ibn ʿUqda heard from him but did not transmit anything on his authority, considering him weak. (5)

It has further been said that al-Dāraquṭnī rejected the charge that he fabricated reports, maintaining that his real shortcoming was his reliance on wajādāt—reports he had merely found in writing—and his inclination toward Shiʿism. (6)