and my executor, my successor after me, and the one who settles my debt.’ This is explicit on the matter.”

The answer may be given from several angles:

First: he must be called upon to establish the authenticity of this hadith. This hadith is not found in any of the books whose authority is such that merely attributing a report to them (1) establishes it as proof; nor has it been declared authentic (2) by any leading hadith scholar.

As for his statement, “It was narrated by the majority,” if he means that hadith scholars narrated it (3) in books whose contents are accepted as proof—such as the works (4) of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and others like them—and declared it authentic, then this is a lie against them. If, however, he means that it is narrated by such figures as Abū Nu'aym in al-Fadā'il (The Virtues), al-Maghāzilī, the preacher of Khwārazm, and others like them, or that it is narrated in works on virtues, then this fact alone does not constitute proof, by consensus of the scholars, even in a subsidiary legal matter. How, then, could it constitute proof regarding the Imamate, over which you have raised such an uproar?

Second: this hadith is a fabricated lie by consensus of the hadith scholars (5). Ibn Hazm’s statement has already been cited that the rest of these hadiths are fabricated—a fact known to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of reports and their transmitters (6). He was correct in this, for anyone with even the slightest familiarity with authentic and weak hadith will certainly know that this hadith and others like it are weak—indeed, fabricated lies. That is why no hadith scholar has included it in the books whose contents are accepted as proof. Rather, those who narrate it do so only in