Muāwiya and ordered that he be killed if he was seen on the pulpit, this hadith is not found in any of the Islamic works relied upon in the study of transmitted reports. Hadith experts regard it as a forged lie fabricated against the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. This Rāfidī who relates [it] (1) provided no chain of transmission that could be examined. Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī included it in al-Mawdūāt (2).
Further evidence of its falsity is that, after Muāwiya, the Prophet’s pulpit—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was mounted by men whom Muāwiya surpassed in merit by the consensus of the Muslims. If everyone who mounted it had to be killed merely for ascending the pulpit, all of those men would have had to be killed. Moreover, this contradicts what is necessarily known of Islam, for (3) merely ascending the pulpit does not make it lawful to kill a Muslim. If he ordered (4) that Muāwiya be killed because he had assumed authority (5) despite being unfit for it,
(1) The pronoun “it” is omitted from N and M.
(2) Ibn al-Jawzī states in *al-Mawdūāt*, 2/24, that this hadith is transmitted from Ibn Masūd and Abū Saīd, and as a *mursal* report from al-Hasan. He then discusses its three transmission routes, 2/24–26, before stating: “This is a fabricated hadith and is not authentically attributable to the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The report of Ibn Masūd contains two men accused of fabricating it. One is Abbād ibn Yaqūb, who was an extremist in his Shiite leanings.” Ibn al-Jawzī then discusses him and the scholars’ criticism of him, after which he states: “As for the report of Abū Saīd, its first chain contains Mujālid . . . and its second contains Alī ibn Zayd.” Ibn al-Jawzī explains that scholars of narrator criticism regard the former as a liar and the latter as being of confused mind, prone to lapses and errors, and deserving to be abandoned as a narrator. Ibn al-Jawzī then states: “I say: Some people, displaying affected cleverness, sought to ward off from Muāwiya the accusation leveled against him in this hadith. They divided into two groups: some altered the wording of the hadith and added to it, while others applied it to someone else.” Ibn al-Jawzī discusses them at 2/26–27.
(3) A and B read: “that,” omitting “for.”
(4) A reads: “and he ordered”; B: “and if he had ordered.”
(5) N alone reads: “authority was entrusted to him.”