Indeed, it has been related from the Imams of the pure Household, peace be upon them, that prostrating upon it illuminates as far as the seventh earth. Another report states that it pierces the seven veils; yet another states that Allah accepts the prayer of one who prostrates upon it in a way that He does not accept from one who prostrates upon anything else; and another states that prostrating upon the clay of al-Husayn’s grave illuminates the earths.”
Such hadiths are plainly false in our view, and the Imams of the Prophet’s Household are innocent of them. They have no chains of transmission in their corpus that could be scrutinized according to the methods and principles of hadith criticism; rather, they are merely mursal reports and reports with a double break!
The author of the treatise was not content with filling its pages with such alleged quotations from the Imams of the Household; he proceeded to mislead readers into thinking that similar reports are narrated in our Sunni books. Thus, he says (p. 19): “The hadiths concerning the merit and sanctity of this Husayni soil are not confined to the hadiths of the Imams. Reports of this kind are widely known in the principal books of the other Islamic sects, through their scholars and narrators. Among them are those narrated by al-Suyuti in his book al-Khasa’is al-Kubra, in the chapter ‘The Prophet’s Foretelling of the Killing of al-Husayn, peace and blessings be upon him.’ In it, he related nearly twenty hadiths from their leading trustworthy authorities, such as al-Hakim, al-Bayhaqi, Abu Nu'aym, al-Tabarani (1), and al-Haythami in al-Majma' (9/191), as well as other famous narrators.”
Know, O Muslim, that neither al-Suyuti nor al-Haythami has even a single hadith indicating the merit or sanctity of the Husayni soil. The only point on which all these reports agree is that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, foretold that al-Husayn would be killed there. I have presented you with a selection of them shortly before; do you find in them what this Shiite alleged against al-Suyuti and al-Haythami in his treatise? By Allah, no! Yet, in their effort to support their misguidance and innovations, the Shiites cling to something frailer than a spider’s web!