The author next cites the report through al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī—a staunch Shiʿi whom more than one critic has declared weak—on the authority of al-Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq, from Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan, from Fāṭimah daughter of al-Ḥusayn the martyr, from Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays. He then relates the ḥadīth.

He adds: “A number of transmitters narrated it from al-Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq, among them ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā.”

The compiler also records it via Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī by way of ʿAbd Allāh. Earlier we presented our own isnād for it from Saʿīd ibn Masʿūd and Abū Umayyah al-Ṭarsūsī, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā al-ʿAbsī—who was likewise a Shiʿi.

Again, he brings it through Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿUqaylī, from Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd, from ʿAmmār ibn Maṭar, from al-Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq al-Agharr al-Ruqāshī—also called al-Rawwāsī—Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kūfī, a client of Banū ʿAnazah. Al-Thawrī and Ibn ʿUyaynah judged him reliable.

• Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “I know nothing of him but good.”
• Ibn Maʿīn said: “Trustworthy,” and on another occasion, “Upright, though an extreme Shiʿi,” and elsewhere, “There is no harm in him.”
• Abū Ḥātim said: “Truthful, sound in narration, but he errs frequently; one may write his ḥadīth though they are not relied upon.”
• ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī said: “It is said that he is weak.”
• Al-Nasāʾī: “Weak.”
• Ibn ʿAdī: “I hope there is no problem with him.”
• Ibn Ḥibbān: “Highly objectionable in ḥadīth; he makes mistakes concerning reliable transmitters and relates forgeries from ʿAṭiyyah.”

Muslim and the four authors of the Sunan nevertheless narrated from him. From this biographical profile it appears he is not accused of deliberate fabrication, yet he is lax—especially with reports that support his own doctrine. He may transmit from people he does not really know or of whom he thinks well, practicing tadlīs by omitting a transmitter and merely saying “from (ʿan) So-and-so.” Hence, in this very ḥadīth—one that demands exceptional caution—he used the ambiguous “ʿan” instead of the explicit formula “he related to us.” It is therefore possible that an unknown narrator lies between him and the person he names.

Moreover, his shaykh here— Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—has no recognized standing: none of the standard ḥadīth collections transmit from him, and no one narrated from him save this al-Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq and Yaḥyā ibn al-Mutawakkil, as Abū Ḥātim and Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī mentioned without praising or criticizing him.

As for Fāṭimah bint al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī—sister of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn—her ḥadīth are well known; the four Sunan authors narrated from her. She was among those taken with the Prophet’s family to Damascus after her father’s martyrdom and is deemed reliable. Yet we do not know whether she actually heard this report from Asmāʾ or not—God knows best.

The compiler also reproduces the report with an isnād from Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kattānī:
“Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Qāḍī—namely, al-Jaʿābī—told us; Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Jaʿfar al-ʿAskarī read it to me from his original manuscript; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yazīd ibn Salīm related to us; Khalaf ibn Sālim related to us; ʿAbd al-Razzāq related to us; Sufyān al-Thawrī related to us, from Ashʿath Abū l-Shaʿthāʾ, from his mother, from Fāṭimah—that is, the daughter of al-Ḥusayn—from Asmāʾ, that the Messenger of God ﷺ supplicated for ʿAlī until the sun was returned to him.”