It is a singular report when it comes through Shuʿbah, whereas the well-known version is the narration of al-Aʿmash from ʿAdī (1).

Its purport is that love for ʿAlī forms part of faith, while hatred for him stems from hypocrisy. Faith is made up of many branches, and hypocrisy likewise branches out. Hence no rational person would claim that merely loving him renders a man an absolute believer, nor that simply disliking him turns a monotheist into a thoroughgoing hypocrite.

If someone loves him yet hates Abū Bakr, he occupies the same position as one who hates him but loves Abū Bakr; hatred for either of them is misguidance and hypocrisy, whereas loving both is guidance and faith. The hadith is recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.

190 – Abū Hafs al-Naysābūrī, ʿAmr ibn Salm*

The imam, exemplar, godly sage, and shaykh of Khurāsān—Abū Hafs ʿAmr ibn Salm, though some say ʿUmar, and others ʿAmr ibn Salamah—was a Naysābūrī ascetic.

He narrated from: Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān the jurist.

Those who transmitted from him include his student Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥīrī, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Ḥamdān the ḥāfiẓ, Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār, and a number of others.

Abū Nuʿaym said: Abū ʿAmr ibn Ḥamdān narrated to us, my father related to me, saying:

The teacher Abū Hafs declared, “Sins are the courier of disbelief, just as fever is the courier of death.”

Abū ʿAmr ibn Ḥamdān also recounted: Abū Hafs had been a blacksmith. His apprentice would blow the bellows once, whereupon Abū Hafs would thrust in his hand and draw the iron out of the fire,