This is a weighty report. Why, then, did he include the ḥadith of the Bird in al-Mustadrak? It seems his personal judgment later shifted. I have assembled the various transmission routes of the ḥadith of the Bird in a separate booklet, and likewise the routes of the ḥadith, “Whoever I am his master, ʿAlī is his master,” which is more authentic. Sounder than both, however, is what Muslim recorded (1) from ʿAlī, who said:
“It was a covenant of the unlettered Prophet ﷺ with me that no one will love you except a believer and no one will hate you except a hypocrite.”
This is the most perplexing of the three, for ʿAlī has been loved by a group who possess no real portion (of piety), and—through ignorance—has been hated by some of the Nawasib. Allah knows best (2).

I was informed by Abū Saʿd al-Ṣaffār, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismāʿīl, who said: “Al-Ḥākim Abū ʿAbd Allāh is the leading ḥadith scholar of his age, fully versed in that discipline. He is called al-Ḍabbī because the great-great-grandfather of his maternal grandmother was ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḍabbī, whose mother was Manwiyyah bint Ibrāhīm ibn Tahmān, the jurist. His household is one of righteousness, scrupulousness, and the public call to prayer in Islam. Al-Ḥākim mentioned his father in his History, so there is no need to repeat it here. He was born in 321 AH.
“He met ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Sharqī, Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī, and Abū Ḥāmid ibn Bilāl, yet did not hear ḥadith from them. He did hear from Abū Ṭāhir al-Muḥammadābādī and Abū Bakr al-Qaṭṭān, though he did not obtain their full auditions. His well-known works overflow with references to his teachers. In Khurāsān he read under the Qur’an reciters of his time, and he studied jurisprudence—