Ali was (1) delivering a sermon from the pulpit in Kufa when a serpent appeared and climbed onto the pulpit. The people were frightened (2) and wanted to kill it, but he stopped them and spoke to it. Then it descended (3). The people asked him about it, and he said: ‘It is the judge of the jinn. A case had perplexed it (4), and I clarified it for it.’ The people of Kufa used to call the gate through which [the serpent] (5) had entered ‘the Serpent Gate.’ The Umayyads wished to efface this merit, so they displayed slain bodies at that gate for a time, until it became known as ‘the Gate of the Slain’.” (6)

The response is that the jinn undoubtedly need people far below Ali in rank, consulting them for religious rulings and asking them questions. This has been known both in earlier times and in our own. If this event did occur, his standing is far more exalted than that; this is among the least of the merits of those below him. If it did not occur, that in no way diminishes his merit.

Only someone bereft (7) of such things needs to establish Ali’s merit through accounts like these. Someone who has associated closely with people of goodness and piety who have experienced greater extraordinary occurrences than these, or who has himself experienced greater ones, would not regard this as grounds for declaring Ali superior.

We know that even those Companions who are far below Ali in rank are far better than we are,