soundly traced back to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Even if these reports were transmitted by someone like Ka‘b al-Ahbār, Wahb ibn Munabbih, or others who relate accounts of origins and stories of earlier peoples from the People of the Book, they could not, by the consensus of the Muslims, be cited as evidence in the Muslims’ religion. How much more so when their transmitter relates them neither from the People of the Book nor from trustworthy Muslim scholars? Rather, he relates them only from someone whom the Muslims regard as an impugned, weak narrator whose hadith cannot serve as evidence. His transmission of these reports is so inconsistent that it is clear he did not retain them accurately. No trustworthy Muslim scholar whose transmission can be relied upon relates this or anything like it. These reports are merely of the kind transmitted by Ishāq ibn Bishr and others like him in books concerning origins.

Even if these reports were authentically established from the prophets, they would constitute religious law for those prophets. Citing them as evidence would then depend on whether the religious law of those before us is also binding upon us. The disagreement over this is well known. However, the position of the leading imams and most scholars is that it is binding upon us unless our own religious law provides otherwise. This applies only to what has been established as the religious law of those before us through a sound report from our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, or through mass transmission from them—not to reports transmitted in this manner. No Muslim may cite such reports as evidence in Islamic law.

Another example of this is a hadith cited by Mūsā ibn ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-San‘ānī, the author of the Quran commentary, through his chain of transmission from Ibn ‘Abbās, attributing the following words to the Prophet:

“Whoever wishes Allah to enable him to retain the Quran and the various branches of knowledge should write this supplication in a clean vessel or on glass sheets, using honey, saffron, and rainwater, and drink it on an empty stomach. He should fast for three days and break his fast with it, and recite this supplication after his prayers: ‘O Allah, I ask You, for You are One who is asked, and none has been asked