then pray four rakʿahs. In the first rakʿah recite al-Fātiḥah and Yā Sīn; in the second, al-Fātiḥah and ad-Dukhān; in the third, al-Fātiḥah and Alif Lām Mīm as-Sajdah; and in the fourth, Tabārak (al-Mulk). When you have finished, praise Allah, offer Him excellent laudation, invoke blessings upon me and upon the rest of the prophets, seek forgiveness for the believers, and say:

“O Allah, have mercy on me by enabling me to abandon sins; have mercy on me by freeing me from taking on what does not concern me; and provide me with the insight to look only into that which pleases You with regard to me. O Allah, Originator of the heavens and the earth, Possessor of majesty and honor, of an invincible might—I ask You, O Allah, O Most Merciful, by Your majesty and the light of Your Face, to bind my heart to the memorization of Your Book …”

—continuing in a lengthy supplication until he said—“O Abū al-Ḥasan, do that on three Fridays, or five, or seven, and you will be answered, by Allah’s permission.”

The narrator added: ʿAlī waited no more than five—or seven—Fridays before he returned to that same gathering and said, “O Messenger of Allah, in the past I could grasp no more than four verses or so, whereas today I learn forty verses at a time. I used to hear a hadith and, when I tried to repeat it, it slipped away; but today I hear a hadith and when I relate it I do not alter a single letter of it.”

At that the Prophet said to him, “A believer—by the Lord of the Kaʿbah—Abū al-Ḥasan! (1)”

Al-Tirmidhī commented: “It is ḥasan, gharīb; we know it only through the narration of al-Walīd.”

I say: In my view this report is fabricated—end of discussion. And perhaps (2) the flaw entered through Sulaymān ibn Bint Shuraḥbīl, for he is repudiated in ḥadith even though he was a memorizer. Had he said merely “from Ibn Jurayj,” it might have been accepted, but he expressly stated “he related it to us,” which strengthened the