—his senior disciples; for through their route both Ṣaḥīḥs record the ḥadīth on fighting the Khārijites, the story of the maimed man, and other reports that praise ʿAlī.

He then said:

As for the narration ascribed to the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Farghānī informed us; Abū al-Mufaḍḍal al-Shaybānī informed us; Rajāʾ ibn Yaḥyā al-Sāmānī narrated to us; Hārūn ibn Muslim ibn Saʿdān narrated to us in Sāmarrāʾ in the year 240 AH; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-Ashʿath narrated to us from Dāwūd ibn al-Kumayt, from his uncle al-Mustahill ibn Zayd, from his father Ibn Sahlab, from Juwariyah bint Shahr, who said:

“I accompanied ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and he said, ‘O Juwariyah, the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—would receive revelation while his head was in my lap.’” He then related the rest of the story.

This isnād is utterly obscure; most of its transmitters are unknown. What appears—God knows best—is that it is a patched-together fabrication, the handiwork of the Rāfiḍīs; may God disgrace them, and may He curse all who lie against the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—and hasten upon them the punishment and retribution threatened by the Lawgiver, for he, the most truthful in speech, said:

“Whoever deliberately lies about me, let him take his seat in the Fire.” (1)

How could anyone versed in knowledge imagine that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib himself would relate a ḥadīth containing such a lofty merit for him and such a dazzling miracle for the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—yet it is transmitted only through this murky, contrived isnād composed of men whose very existence outside the page is doubtful—indeed, God knows best, they likely never existed at all?

Moreover, the report stems from a woman whose identity and condition are wholly unknown. Where are ʿAlī’s trustworthy companions—such as ʿUbayd al-Salmānī, Shurayḥ the judge, ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī, and their peers?

The silence of the leading imams—Mālik, the compilers of the Six Books, and the authors of the Musnads, Sunans, and collections of sound and fair reports—regarding this ḥadīth, and their failure to include it in their works, is the clearest proof that it had no standing with them or was a fabrication introduced after their time.

Even Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, who authored a separate treatise entitled “The Special Merits of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib,” did not mention it; nor did al-Ḥākim cite it in his Mustadrak (2)—and both scholars are known to have harbored a degree of Shiʿite leaning. No respected transmitter has reported it except as a rarity that arouses astonishment. How could such a spectacular event—occurring openly in broad daylight and inviting eager transmission—come down to us only through weak, discredited routes, most of them patched together and fabricated?

The soundest isnād among them is the one we cited earlier from Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī, through Ibn Abī Fudayk, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Fiṭrī, ʿAwn ibn Muḥammad, his mother Umm Jaʿfar, and Asmāʾ—despite the defects in it that we have already indicated. Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ (may God have mercy upon him) was taken in by that chain, inclined to accept its soundness, and judged it to be established.