the Messenger of Allah ﷺ thereupon praised Allah the Exalted and extolled Him, and then said:

“To proceed: I have been commanded to close all these doors except the door of ʿAlī. You have spoken about the matter, but—by Allah—I myself have shut nothing and opened nothing; I was merely commanded to do something, and I obeyed.”

Ahmad relates this report, saying: “Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us; ʿAwf narrated to us, from Maymūn Abū ʿAbd Allāh, from him.”

Its transmitters are the trustworthy narrators relied upon by the two Shaykhs, except for this Maymūn—the Basran client of Ibn Samurah—who is weak, as stated in al-Taqrīb. Al-Haythamī notes in al-Majmaʿ: “Ibn Ḥibbān declared him reliable, while several scholars judged him weak; the remaining narrators belong to the compilers of the Ṣaḥīḥ.”

Al-Dhahabī records the ḥadīth and remarks: “Al-ʿUqaylī commented afterwards: It has also been transmitted through a chain better than this one, yet that too is pliant.”

Ibn Ḥajar, however, states in Fatḥ al-Bārī: “Ahmad, al-Nasāʾī, and al-Ḥākim transmit it, and its narrators are trustworthy.” This, once again, is a contradiction, for al-Ḥākim reproduces it in his Mustadrak through Ahmad’s route, declares, “Its chain is sound,” and al-Dhahabī concurs.

Among the supporting narrations is what Ibn ʿUmar said: “Ibn Abī Ṭālib was granted three distinctions; to possess even one of them would be dearer to me…”