its falsehood. Rather, it was fabricated by someone intent on spreading falsehood among people. As people say, one of the adherents of deviant doctrines fabricated it so that he could say: “The hadith scholars transmit things like this.” Yet all hadith scholars agree in cursing whoever fabricated it.

Similar examples include the hadith about the ash-grey camel, claiming that He descends on the afternoon of ‘Arafah upon an ash-grey camel, shakes hands with those on foot, and embraces those who are mounted; the report that the Prophet saw his Lord during circumambulation; and the report that he saw Him with his own eyes on the night of the Ascension, with a gleaming crown upon Him. Indeed, every hadith stating that he saw his Lord directly on the night of the Ascension is a lie and a fabrication, according to the unanimous agreement of those versed in hadith. Those who fabricated these reports may have been heretics who devised them to discredit the ignorant people who transmit and believe them. Alternatively, their fabricators may themselves have been ignorant people who thought such things were true and that fabricating these reports would bolster the truth.

Similarly, many such people fabricated hadiths about the merits of the Companions—Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthmān—and especially about the merits of ‘Alī: the lies they fabricated concerning him are almost beyond counting. Yet the authentic reports of their merits suffice without any falsehood. The same applies to the reports fabricated to disparage them, especially those fabricated by the Rāfidah to disparage the caliphs and others: these contain lies that only Allah can count.

The point is that the objector says:

“It is possible that those who fabricated what is in