Al-Tirmidhī also recorded it in al-Shamāʾil (no. 346) through this route, as did al-Ḥākim (4/393), who said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī concurred with him, as did al-ʿAsqalānī, who said in Fatḥ al-Bārī (12/384), after attributing it to al-Ḥākim: “Its chain is good.” Its wording there is: “He said: I said to Ibn ʿAbbās, ‘I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in a dream.’ He said, ‘Describe him to me.’ He said: ‘I mentioned al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī and likened him to him.’ He said, ‘You have seen him.’” I say: I did not find it in al-Ḥākim’s al-Mustadrak with this wording. And Allah knows best.

It has a third corroborating report from the hadith of Anas, attributed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with the wording: “Whoever sees me in a dream has indeed seen me, for Satan cannot assume my form.” Al-Tirmidhī recorded it in al-Shamāʾil (349), as did al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsaṭ (1/218/2/3906). Its chain of transmission is authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Al-Bukhārī also recorded it (6994) with the wording: “…he cannot impersonate me,” and the meaning is the same. Al-Manāwī said in his commentary on al-Shamāʾil: “ ‘He cannot assume my form’ means that he is unable to appear to anyone in my form; thus, the meaning of assuming a form is close to that of forming an image.”

Know that the hadith has been narrated in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere with other wordings, such as: “he cannot disguise himself as me,” “he cannot appear as me,” and “he cannot take my form”; all of them are equivalent in meaning,