Isra’il narrated—through ʿAbd al-Aʿlā—that he saw Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī let the tail of his turban hang down his back. I asked him about the wasmah (indigo dye), and he said, “It is the dye we, the Ahl al-Bayt, use.” (1)
Isḥāq al-Ṣaffār informed us—via Ibn Khalīl, Abū al-Makārim al-Taymī, Abū ʿAlī al-Muqriʾ, Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Maṣṣīṣī, Aḥmad ibn Khulayد, Abū Nuʿaym, and Bassām al-Ṣayrafī—who said:
“I asked Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī about the Qur’an, and he replied, ‘It is the speech of Allah, uncreated.’” (2)
Through the same chain, Abū Nuʿaym narrated to us—from Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥubaysh, Ibrāhīm ibn Sharīk, ʿUqbah ibn Mukram, and Yūnus ibn Bukayr, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Juʿfī, from ʿUrwah ibn ʿAbd Allāh—who said:
“I asked Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī about decorating swords. He said, ‘There is no harm in it; Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq adorned his sword.’ I asked, ‘And you call him al-Ṣiddīq?’ He leapt up, faced the qiblah, and said, ‘Yes—al-Ṣiddīq, al-Ṣiddīq! Whoever refuses to say “al-Ṣiddīq,” may Allah never make any of his words trustworthy in this world or the Hereafter.’” (3)
ʿUmar, the freedman of Ghufrah, transmitted from Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī that he said: “No trace of arrogance enters a person’s heart except that his intellect is diminished by exactly that amount.” (4)
Abū Jaʿfar also said: “Thunderbolts strike both the believer and the unbeliever, but they do not strike the one who remembers Allah.”
And he said: “The weapon of the ignoble is vile speech.” (5)