A solitary report, however, does not yield certain knowledge(1) except when accompanied by corroborating indications, and these may be absent or hidden from most people. Consequently, they would have no certain knowledge(2) of the Quran and the mass-transmitted sunnahs. If they say that the report of that one infallible individual yields certain knowledge, the answer is that his infallibility must first be known. Yet his infallibility cannot be established solely by his own report before his infallibility is known(3), for that(4) is circular reasoning. Nor can it be established(5) by consensus, since there is no consensus regarding it. According to the Imāmīs, consensus is authoritative only because the infallible Imam is included among them. The matter therefore returns to establishing his infallibility solely on his own claim. It is thus clear that, even if his infallibility were true, it would have to be known through some means other than his own report.

If the city of knowledge had no gate other than him, neither his infallibility nor any other matter of religion could be established. It is therefore clear that this hadith was fabricated by an ignorant heretic who imagined it to be praise, whereas it gives heretics an avenue(6) for attacking the religion of Islam, since only one person would have conveyed it.

Furthermore, this contradicts what is known through mass transmission. Every city throughout the Muslim world received knowledge from the Messenger through people other than Ali. As for the people of Medina and Mecca, the matter is evident in both cities; the same is true of Greater Syria and Basra, for the people of these regions transmitted very little from Ali. It was in Kufa that most of his knowledge was transmitted. Yet even the people of Kufa knew the Quran and Sunnah before Uthmān became caliph, let alone Ali.