before him—and Anas ibn Mālik was screening him—so the Prophet ﷺ raised his hand toward Allah and said:

“O Allah, bring to me the servant who is most beloved to You so that he may eat this bird with me.”

ʿAlī then came and sought permission to enter, but Anas told him, “The Messenger of Allah is busy with a personal need (1),” and ʿAlī went back. The Prophet ﷺ repeated the supplication, and ʿAlī returned, only to be turned away once more. When he prayed a third time, ʿAlī came again, and Anas admitted him. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ saw him, he said, “O Allah—and to me as well!” ʿAlī ate with him. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had finished eating and ʿAlī had left, Anas said:

“I met ʿAlī and said, ‘Abū al-Ḥasan, ask forgiveness for me, for I have wronged you, yet I bring you glad tidings.’ I then told him what the Prophet ﷺ had done. He praised Allah, sought forgiveness for me, and was pleased with me; my good news erased my offence in his sight.”

Ibn ʿAsākir cites a version of this narration from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Anṣārī (2) through ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṣāliḥ, the scribe of al-Layth, from Ibn Luhayʿah, from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir, from Jābir, who related it at length.

It has also been transmitted from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, and al-Ḥākim (3) deemed it sound, yet its chain is obscure and contains weak narrators.

Further versions exist from Ḥubshī ibn Junādah—but they are likewise unsound—from Yaʿlā ibn Murrah, whose chain is dark, and from Abū Rāfiʿ with similar wording, though it is not authentic—in fact its route is obscure.

Scholars have produced independent monographs on this ḥadith. Among them are Abū Bakr ibn Mardūyah and the ḥāfiẓ Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥamdān, as our teacher Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Dhahabī reports. I have seen a volume by Abū Jaʿfar ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī—the Qurʾān exegete and historian—collecting all its chains and wordings, and later a large treatise refuting it and declaring both its isnād and its text weak, authored by the theologian Qāḍī Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī.

In sum (4), despite the multitude of its routes, the soundness of this ḥadith remains doubtful. Allah knows best.

Another ḥadith concerning the virtues of ʿAlī (5):

Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī said: Bishr ibn Mūsā al-Asadī narrated to us; Zakariyyā ibn ʿAdī narrated to us; ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr narrated to us, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl (6), from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah, who said:

I went out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to a woman of the Anṣār who owned a date-grove called al-Isrāf (7). She spread a mat for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ beneath a moistened ṣūr (a low stone shelter), and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Now a man from the people of Paradise will come to you.”

Abū Bakr arrived.

He then said, “Now a man from the people of Paradise will come to you.”

ʿUmar arrived.

Then he said, “Now a man from the people of Paradise will come to you.”

[Jābir continued:] I saw him with his head lowered