He excused Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī for declaring the report sound on the grounds that he had been taken in by the chain of transmission, and he excused al-Ṭaḥāwī by saying that he did not command the isnāds as the great critical masters do. In one of his pointed comments he declared: “What is certain is that it is a fabricated lie.”

I say: Ibn al-Muṭahhar’s citing this report from Jābir is peculiar, and he supplies no chain for it. Its very wording makes ʿAlī the one who supposedly called for the sun’s return on both occasions. As for his inclusion of the Babylon episode, it is entirely without isnād; I suspect—God knows best—that it is the handiwork of the heretical Shīʿites and their ilk. The Messenger of God ﷺ and his Companions on the Day of the Trench let the sun set on them before they had prayed ʿAṣr; they then went to Bathān, a nearby valley, performed ablution and prayed ʿAṣr after sunset—ʿAlī was with them, yet the sun was not restored. Many Companions who marched to Banū Qurayẓah missed the ʿAṣr prayer that same day until after sunset, and the sun was not brought back for them. Likewise, when the Messenger of God ﷺ and his Companions overslept the dawn prayer until the sun had risen, they prayed it later in the morning, and night was not returned for them. God would not confer upon ʿAlī and his fellows a distinction He withheld from the Messenger of God ﷺ and his Companions.

As for al-Ḥimyārī’s poem, it proves nothing; it is akin to Ibn al-Muṭahhar’s delirious prose—this one does not know what he is saying in prose, and that one has no idea whether what he versifies is sound. Both are like the poet who said:
“If truly I knew, then let the forfeit fall on me;
So tangled are my thoughts I scarce know what I may be.”

What is authentically reported about ʿAlī in the land of Bābil is the narration recorded by Abū Dāwūd in his Sunan: ʿAlī passed through Bābil when the time for ʿAṣr had arrived, but he did not pray until he had gone beyond it, saying, “My intimate friend ﷺ forbade me to pray in the land of Bābil, for it is accursed.” (1)

Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm, in his book al-Milal wa’l-Niḥal, likewise dismissed the claim that the sun was returned for ʿAlī. After refuting other baseless assertions he wrote: “There is no difference between anyone who credits a virtuous man with such marvels and the Rāfiḍite claim that the sun was returned for ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib twice.” Some of them even alleged that Ḥabīb ibn Aws (Abū Tammām) composed the following verses:
“The sun came back to us while night, begrudging, slipped away—
A second sun for them that rose from the curtained bay;
Its radiance stripped the cloak of night of every sable dye,
Till heaven’s borrowed light collapsed before its splendour high.
By God, I do not know—was it a dreamer’s fleeting gleam,
Or was Yūshaʿ himself among the gathered, as it would seem?”