virtue beyond what is found among many ordinary Muslims; indeed, among them one may find virtue greater still.
[The Rāfidī’s Remarks concerning al-Hasan al-Askarī and the Response to Them]
As for his statement (1): “His son (2), al-Hasan al-Askarī, was learned, ascetic, virtuous, and devout—the finest man of his age—and the wider Muslim community transmitted a great deal from him.”
This is of the same kind as the preceding baseless claims and manifest lies (3). The scholars renowned for transmitting hadith who lived in the time of this al-Hasan ibn Alī al-Askarī have no well-known reports [from him] (4) in the works of learned authorities. Moreover, the teachers of [the authors of] (5) the Six Books (6)—al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī (7), al-Nasā’ī, and Ibn Mājah—were alive at that time or close to it, both before and after.
The hadith master Abū al-Qāsim ibn Asākir compiled accounts concerning the teachers of the eminent scholars (8), namely,