- Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿUthmān reported: ʿUthmān ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Ṭūsī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd narrated to us; Wazīruh ibn Muḥammad said:
“I entered upon Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal after he had openly practiced the tarbīʿ with ʿAlī—that is, after he had placed him fourth in order. I said, ‘Abū ʿAbd Allāh, this very wording inevitably amounts to disparagement of Ṭalḥah and al-Zubayr.’
He answered, ‘Make your point clear. And who are we to go into the fighting that occurred among those people?’
I replied, ‘May Allah set you right. We only mentioned it because, once you had assigned ʿAlī the fourth position and deemed the caliphate rightfully his, that has implications for what the earlier imams held.’
He said, ‘And what should prevent me from doing so?’
I said, ‘The hadith of Ibn ʿUmar.’
He responded, ‘When ʿUmar was stabbed he was satisfied with ʿAlī to hold the caliphate over the Muslims and included him in the consultative council; and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib called himself “Commander of the Believers.” Am I, then, to say that the believers had no commander?’
With that, he turned away from me.”