such tales as these are related without any chain of transmission. They are related by purveyors of unverifiable tales, who make claims with no basis in reality and present the words of Alī and Ibn Abbās as though they were of the same kind as their own. Thus, they claim that Umar said:
“The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and Abū Bakr used to converse, while I was like a Zanjī between them.”
By the consensus of the scholars, this is a lie against Umar. Likewise, they relate that Umar married Abū Bakr’s wife (* in order to ask her what she knew of Abū Bakr in private. She said, “I could smell the odor of a burning liver on his breath.” This too is a lie, and Umar never married Abū Bakr’s wife *) (1). Rather, Alī was the one who married her: he married Asmā bint Umays, whose son Muhammad ibn Abī Bakr became his stepson and was raised in his care.
As for Ibn Abbās, a great deal of Quranic exegesis—as much as Allah willed—has been transmitted from him through established chains of transmission, yet none of it mentions Alī. Ibn Abbās narrates from a number of the Companions: from Umar, Abū Hurayra, Abd al-Rahmān ibn Awf, Zayd ibn Thābit, Ubayy ibn Kab, Usāma ibn Zayd, and a number of the Emigrants and Helpers. His narrations from Alī are exceedingly few. The compilers of the authentic hadith collections (2) did not include any of his narrations from Alī, though they did include his narrations from Umar, Abd al-Rahmān ibn Awf, Abū Hurayra, and others.
Moreover, Quranic exegesis was received from others besides Ibn Abbās (3): it was received from Ibn Masūd and others