Al-Rabīʿ ibn Mundhir al-Thawrī narrated, on the authority of his father:

“There was a dispute between ʿAlī and Ṭalḥah. Ṭalḥah said, ‘Out of your audacity (1) toward the Messenger of Allah you have taken his name and his kunyah, even though he forbade anyone to combine the two.’

He replied, ‘The truly audacious is the one who dares to oppose Allah and His Messenger. Go, so-and-so, and summon so-and-so and so-and-so’—mentioning a group from Quraysh.

When they arrived he asked, ‘What do you testify to?’

They said, ‘We testify that the Messenger of Allah said: “A boy will be born to you after me; I have granted him my name and my kunyah, and it is not permissible for anyone in my community after him to combine the two.” (2)’

Two reliable transmitters reported this from al-Rabīʿ; the chain, however, is mursal.

Zayd ibn al-Hubāb related: al-Rabīʿ ibn Mundhir told us, his father told us, that he heard Ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah say:

“ʿUmar entered while I was with my sister Umm Kulthūm; he embraced me and said, ‘Be kind to him—give him something sweet.’ (3)”

Sālim ibn Abī Ḥafṣah narrated from Mundhir, from Ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah, who said:

“Ḥasan and Ḥusayn are better than I am, yet they both know that he used to seclude himself with me to the exclusion of them; and I am the rider of the grey mule. (4)”

Ibrāhīm ibn al-Junayd said, “We know of no one who transmitted from ʿAlī more—nor more accurately—than Ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah.”

Isrāʾīl reported, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, that “Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī was known by the kunyah Abū al-Qāsim; he was devout and possessed extensive knowledge.”