and not to make us among those who harbor any rancor in their hearts toward the believers, and we have no doubt that ʿAli was superior to those who fought him and that he—may Allah be pleased with him—was the one who stood closer to the truth.
Al-ʿUqayli said: Muhammad ibn ʿUthman narrated to us; al-Hasan narrated to us; I heard Abu Nuʿaym say:
Ibn Idris once appeared to give testimony before Sharik—or perhaps brought a case to him—whereupon Sharik ordered that he be made to stand, and he was struck on the nape, or jabbed on the back.
Sharik remarked, “So far as I know, he comes from a household of fools.”
ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad said: I heard my father say, “I have written from Yahya ibn Saʿid, from Sharik, not in the formal mode of hadith transmission—that is, during scholarly discussion.”
ʿAbd Allah also said: I heard my father say, “Sharik did not care how he narrated; Hasan ibn Salih was more reliable than he in hadith.”
Khalifah ibn Khayyat said: Sharik ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Abi Sharik—who is al-Harith ibn Aws ibn al-Harith ibn al-Azhal ibn Wahbil ibn Saʿd ibn Malik ibn al-Nakhaʿ (1)—was known by the teknonym Abu ʿAbd Allah.
He died in the year 177 or 178 AH.
He therefore wishes he could take the place of the deceased because of the hardship. This hadith is mutawatir (mass-transmitted); it was narrated by several Companions, among them: Abu Saʿid al-Khudri—whose version is in the Sahih—Qatadah ibn al-Nuʿman (al-Nasaʾi), Abu Hurayrah (al-Tirmidhi), ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs (al-Nasaʾi), ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan, Hudhayfah, Abu Ayyub, Abu Rafiʿ, Khuzaymah ibn Thabit, Muʿawiyah, and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar states in Fath al-Bari 1/452: “All of these reports are found in al-Tabarani and elsewhere, and most of their chains are sound or good. There are many other transmitters as well, too numerous to list.”
This hadith is a proof of Prophethood, a clear virtue for ʿAli and ʿAmmar, and a refutation of the Nasibis who claim that ʿAli was not in the right during his wars. Al-Manawi quotes in Fayd al-Qadir 6/366 from the book al-Imama by Imam ʿAbd al-Qahir al-Jurjani: “The jurists of the Hijaz and Iraq, both the tradition-based and the rationalist schools—among them Malik, al-Shafiʿi, Abu Hanifah, al-Awzaʿi, and the vast majority of theologians and Muslims—are unanimous that ʿAli was correct in fighting the people of Siffin, just as he was correct in fighting the people of the Camel, and that those who fought him were rebels who wronged him.”
(1) Khalifah, Tabaqat, no. 1295; Ibn Saʿd, 6/378; Wafayat al-Aʿyan, 2/464, with the additional material cited there.