[Hadith Fourteen: on the authority of the Mother of the Believers ʿĀʾishah]
Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī (1) said: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ and Abū Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿAmr informed us. They both said: Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm narrated to us; al-Sarī ibn Yaḥyā narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Yūnus narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us, from Ḥabīb, from Salamah.
He (Salamah) said: ʿAlī stated, “ʿĀʾishah knew that the army of the marauders and the people of Nahrawān are cursed upon the tongue of Muḥammad ﷺ.”
Ibn ʿAyyāsh added: “The army of the marauders were the killers of ʿUthmān (may Allah be pleased with him).”
Al-Haytham ibn ʿAdī (2) said: “Israel narrated to me, from Yūnus, from his grandfather Abū Isḥāq al-Sabiʿī, from a man who reported from ʿĀʾishah.” He said: When news reached her that ʿAlī had slain the Kharijites she remarked, “ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib has killed the demon of al-Raddah”—meaning the muḵdāj (the maimed one).
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bazzār said: “Muḥammad ibn ʿUmārah ibn Ṣubayḥ narrated to us; Sahl (3) ibn ʿĀmir al-Bajalī narrated to us; Abū Khālid narrated to us, from Mujālid, from al-Shaʿbī, from Masrūq, from ʿĀʾishah.” She said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ mentioned the Kharijites and said, “The worst of my community will be killed by the best of my community.” (4)
He (5) also said: “Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd narrated to us; Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn Qurram narrated to us; ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib narrated to us, from Abū Ḍaḥā, from Masrūq (6), from ʿĀʾishah, from the Prophet ﷺ,” and he related something similar, adding, “I later saw that ʿAlī killed them—they were the people of Nahrawān.” Al-Bazzār then said: “We know of no one who transmitted this hadith from ʿAṭāʾ, from Abū Ḍaḥā, from Masrūq except Sulaymān ibn Qurram.”
[I say:] Sulaymān ibn Qurram has indeed been spoken against, yet the first chain corroborates this one just as this one corroborates the first; (7) thus the two reinforce each other. The narration is rare coming from the Mother of the Believers (8), though it has already appeared in the report of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaddād (9), from