more than one scholar from the major centers of learning—such as Ayyub and al-Daraqutni, and others besides—has said: “Whoever ranks ʿAli ahead of ʿUthman has shown contempt for the Emigrants and the Helpers.” This pronouncement is true, accurate, sound, and praiseworthy.

Yaʿqub ibn Sufyan said:

“ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Owaysi (1) narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿid (2) narrated to us, from Shuʿbah, from Abū ʿAwn—Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Thaqafī—on the authority of Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Ḥanafī, who said:

‘I saw ʿAli ibn Abī Ṭālib take the muṣḥaf, place it upon his head—so close that I heard its pages rustling—and say, “O Allah, they have kept me from carrying out, among the ummah, what is contained in it; so grant me the reward that is contained in it.”

He then said, “O Allah, I have grown weary of them and they have grown weary of me; I have come to hate them and they to hate me. They have forced me into a temperament foreign to my very nature (3) and character—traits never known of me. O Allah, replace them for me with people better than they, and replace me for them with someone worse than I. O Allah, make their hearts die as salt dissolves in water.”’

Ibrāhīm added:—meaning, the people of Kūfa.

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said:

“ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣāliḥ related to me; ʿAmr ibn Hishām al-Khubī Abū al-Ḥabāb narrated to us; from Abū ʿAwad (4) al-Thaqafī; from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, who said:

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAli told me that ʿAli said to me: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ appeared to me in a dream last night, and I said, “O Messenger of Allah, what crookedness and contentiousness I have met from your community!” He replied, “Invoke a curse upon them.” So I said, “O Allah, replace them for me with those who will be better for me than they, and replace me for them with someone who will be worse [for them] than I.”’ He continued, ‘Then ʿAli went out, and the man struck him.’

al-awad means crookedness (5) and al-ladd means obstinate disputation.

We have already cited the hadith that foretold his murder (6) and that his beard would be stained with the blood from his head; it happened exactly as the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—had foretold.

Abū Dāwud relates in the “Book of Divine Decree” that, during the days of the Khārijites, ten of ʿAli’s companions would guard him each night, spending the night in the mosque fully armed.

ʿAli saw them and said, “What keeps you sitting here?” (7)

They replied, “We are guarding you.”

He said, “Against the inhabitants of heaven?” Then he added, “Nothing occurs on earth except what has already been decreed in heaven, and for ʿAli there is a well-fortified shield from Allah.”

In another wording: “Indeed, a man possesses a fortified shield” (8);

and in yet another: “There is no person except that an angel has been appointed over him; no beast or anything else tries to harm him but that the angel says, ‘Stay back! Stay back!’ When the decree arrives, the angel withdraws.”

Another narration states: “Two angels repel harm from him; when the decree arrives, they leave him to it.”