and made them part of Ali’s speech. Some of it is related from Ali as something he said, while some consists of true words that it would have been fitting for him to say, though in reality they were spoken by someone else.

Thus, in al-Jāhiz’s al-Bayān wa-l-Tabyīn and other books, one finds statements transmitted from persons other than Ali, yet the compiler of Nahj al-Balāgha attributes them to Ali.

If all the orations transmitted in Nahj al-Balāgha had indeed come from Ali and been his own words, they would have existed before this compilation and would have been transmitted from Ali through chains of transmission and by other means. When someone versed in transmitted reports knows that many of them—indeed, most of them—were unknown before this work, it becomes evident that the attribution is false. Otherwise, let the one transmitting them explain: In which book was this mentioned? Who transmitted it from Ali? What is its chain of transmission? Without this, anyone can make an unsupported claim.

Anyone acquainted with the methods of hadith scholars, with reports and material transmitted through chains of transmission, and with distinguishing what is true from what is false, knows that those who transmit such things from Ali are among the people least acquainted with transmitted reports and least able to distinguish the true from the false.

[Section: The Rāfidī’s Citation of Ali’s Statement, “Ask Me Before You Lose Me,” and the Response to It]

(Section)

The Rāfidī said(1):

“And he said(2): ‘Ask me before you lose me. Ask me about the paths of heaven, for I know them better than the paths of the earth.’”