Abī Sulaymān, who said:
‘I asked Abū Jafar Muhammad ibn Alī about this verse, and he replied:
“They are those who believe.”
I asked, “Was it revealed [concerning Alī?”
He replied, “Alī is one of those who believe.”] (1)’
The same was related from al-Suddī.”
The fourth response is as follows: We shall excuse him from establishing consensus and merely demand that he transmit this through a single sound chain of transmission. As for the chain of transmission mentioned by al-Thalabī, that chain (2) is weak and includes men who have been impugned. The report transmitted by Ibn al-Maghāzilī (3) al-Wāsitī (4) is weaker still, for he filled his book with fabricated hadiths (5) whose falsehood is obvious to anyone possessing even the slightest knowledge of hadith. The demand for a chain of transmission applies to both reports.
The fifth response is as follows: It should be said that if the verse meant that zakat should be given while bowing—as they claim that Alī gave his ring in charity during prayer—then it would necessarily have to be
(1) The passage between square brackets is omitted in N.
(2) S and B read: “a chain of transmission.”
(3) B reads: “Ibn al-Maghāzī.”
(4) He was Abū al-Hasan—or Abū Muhammad—Alī ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tayyib al-Jullābī al-Shāfiī al-Wāsitī, later al-Baghdādī, commonly known as Ibn al-Maghāzilī. He died in 483 AH. Born in Wāsit, he moved to Baghdad toward the end of his life. He followed the Shāfiī school in jurisprudence and Asharī theology. He was called Ibn al-Maghāzilī because one of his ancestors had resided in the al-Maghāziliyyīn quarter of Wāsit. In *al-Ansāb*, al-Samānī lists *Dhayl Tārīkh Wāsit* among his works and states that he drowned in Baghdad in 483 AH; his body was carried to Wāsit and buried there. I found biographical notices of him only in al-Samānī’s *al-Ansāb*, pp. 46[0–9] (Margoliouth ed.) and 3:446 (Hyderabad ed., 1383 AH/1963); al-Zabīdī’s *Tāj al-Arūs*, 1:186; Ibn Hajar’s *Tabsīr al-Muntabih bi-Tahrīr al-Mushtabih*, 1:380 (ed. 183/1964); and the introduction to Ibn al-Maghāzilī’s *Manāqib al-Imām Alī ibn Abī Tālib*, pp. 3–92, edited by Muhammad Bāqir al-Bahbūdī (Beirut: Dār al-Adwā, 1403 AH/1983).
(5) S, N, and B read: “fabricated” in the singular.