so when they had moved out to an open spot there, he told the mu’adhdhin to give the iqāmah. Once the prayer was finished he said,

“My beloved—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—forbade me to pray in a graveyard and forbade me to pray in the land of Babylon, for it is accursed.”

The same report was also recorded by the two of them through al-Ḥajjāj ibn Shaddād, from Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Ghifārī, with identical wording. Al-Khattābī commented, “There is some discussion concerning the isnād of this ḥadīth,” and al-Ḥāfiẓ said in Fatḥ al-Bārī, “Its chain is weak.”

I say: The likely defect is a break between Abū Ṣāliḥ—whose name is Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān—and ʿAlī (may Allah honor his face), for Ibn Yūnus said, “His narration from ʿAlī is mursal,” even though the remaining narrators are judged reliable.

A version also appears as a statement from ʿAlī himself. Al-Bukhārī noted, “It is mentioned that ʿAlī (may Allah honor his face) disliked praying in the sunken land of Babylon.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ added, “Ibn Abī Shaybah transmitted this report through ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Milḥ (with a ḍamma on the mīm, a kasra on the hāʾ, and a doubled lām). He said, ‘We were with ʿAlī when we passed by the sunken tract in Babylon; he did not pray until he had gone beyond it.’ In another route from ʿAlī he said, ‘I would never pray in a land that Allah caused to sink.’”

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, in al-Iqtiḍāʾ, after citing the marfūʿ (Prophetic) narration of ʿAlī recorded by Abū Dāwūd, said