Then he said:

Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʿqūb al-Jawzajānī (1) reported: I asked Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd al-Ṭanafīsī (2), “What is your view of someone who claims that the sun was returned for ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib so that he might perform the ʿAṣr prayer?” He replied, “Whoever says that has lied.”

Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʿqūb further said: I questioned Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd al-Ṭanafīsī (3) and said, “There are people among us who maintain that ʿAlī is the Messenger of God’s ﷺ designated successor and that the sun was returned for him.” He answered, “All of this is false.”

Section: Collating this ḥadīth from various sources

Abū’l-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥasakānī compiled a booklet which he entitled, “A Treatise on Establishing the Return of the Sun and Humbling the Nasibīs.”

He stated: This has been related through Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Abū Hurayrah, and Abū Saʿīd al-Khuḍrī.

He then transmitted it through Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī, Aḥmad ibn al-Walīd al-Anṭākī, and al-Ḥasan ibn Dāwūd—each of the three narrating from Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Fudayk, who is trustworthy—who said: Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Faṭarī al-Madanī, also trustworthy, informed me from ʿAwn ibn Muḥammad (the son of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah) from his mother, Umm Jaʿfar bint Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, from her grandmother Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays:

The Messenger of God ﷺ prayed Ẓuhr at al-Ṣahbāʾ in the territory of Khaybar, after which he dispatched ʿAlī on an errand. ʿAlī returned after the Messenger of God had prayed ʿAṣr. The Prophet placed his head in ʿAlī’s lap and did not move it until the sun had set. The Messenger of God ﷺ then supplicated, “O Allah, Your servant ʿAlī has devoted himself to Your Prophet, so return to him the sun’s radiance.” Asmāʾ said: The sun rose again until it climbed above the mountains; ʿAlī stood, performed ablution, prayed ʿAṣr, and then the sun set once more.

This chain contains narrators whose standing is unknown: both ʿAwn and his mother are not recognized for the probity and accuracy that would make their report acceptable even in lesser matters. How, then, can such a monumental claim rest on their narration—especially when none of the compilers of the Ṣaḥīḥ collections, the Sunan, or the well-known Musnads has transmitted it? God knows best. Moreover, we do not know whether this woman actually heard the report from her grandmother Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays or not.