used to pray behind Marwān, each of them racing to reach the first row, and al-Ḥusayn would curse Marwān while Marwān was still on the pulpit until he stepped down. Was that merely taqiyyah (dissimulation)? (1)

Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated—from al-Aʿmash—from Abu Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, who said: “They claim that I am the Mahdī, yet I am closer to my appointed term than I am to what they allege.” (2)

Sufyān al-Thawrī said: “One of Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī’s children fell ill, and he was deeply troubled; then, when he was informed of the child’s death, his grief was lifted. He was asked about that, and he replied: ‘We ask Allah for what we love, but when what we dislike occurs, we do not oppose Allah in what He has willed.’” (3)

Ibn ʿUyaynah said: “Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad related to us; I heard my father say to his aunt Fāṭimah bint al-Ḥusayn, ‘This year I have completed fifty-eight years.’ He died in that very year.” (4)

ʿAffān reported: Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm told me, ‘I saw Abu Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī wearing a cloak of khazz (silk-wool brocade) and a mantle of the same fabric.’ (5)

ʿUbaydullāh ibn Mūsā said: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Malik narrated to us, ‘I saw on Abu Jaʿfar a garment with ornamental stripes. I remarked on it, and he said, “There is no harm in two finger-widths of silk brocade in a garment.”’ (6)

ʿUmar ibn Mawhab said: ‘I saw Abu Jaʿfar wearing a red wrap.’