scholars, along forty separate transmission routes, leading to forty Successors who report from forty Companions—whose names number forty and come from forty tribes—all set out in forty chapters.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Jābir, the Qurʾān-reciter (1), informed us in the year 734 AH. Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥayyān informed us in Tunis in the year 717 AH. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Abbar narrated to us; Abū ʿĀmir Nadhīr ibn Wahb ibn Lubb al-Fihrī—reading to me—narrated to us; my father, Abū al-ʿAṭāʾ, narrated to us; my father, the judge Abū ʿĪsā Lubb ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Aḥmad, narrated to us; Abū Marwān narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Judhamī, the prayer-leader, narrated to us; Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Zamnin al-Ilbīrī narrated to us in his book Adab al-Islām; the jurist Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṭulayṭulī informed me, from Aḥmad ibn Khālid, from Ibn Waḍḍāḥ, from Ibn Abī Shaybah, who said: Wakīʿ narrated to us, from Ismāʿīl, from Qays, from Jarīr, who said:

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Allah shows no mercy to the one who shows no mercy to people.” (2)

This is an authentic (ṣaḥīḥ) hadith. It has reached us on a chain seven tiers lower than the route for which Ibn Abī ʿUmar and others granted us general authorization. They said:

ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad informed us; Hibat Allah ibn Muḥammad informed us; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ghailān informed us; Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Shaddād narrated to us; Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān narrated to us, from Ismāʿīl with this wording.

I have seen a fascicle by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Abbar entitled Durar al-Simṭ fī Khabar al-Sibṭ—meaning al-Ḥusayn—composed in a brilliant style that openly betrays a Shiʿī inclination, for he describes ʿAlī, may Allah be pleased with him, as “the legatee” and speaks disparagingly of Muʿāwiyah and his household. I have also come across