So, the report is completely useless and irrelevant, since...

So, the report is completely useless and irrelevant, since it is strictly about a hopelessly unidentifiable character.

Narration Two With the collapse of the first riwayah , Imam Ibn Asakir takes us to another: قرأنا على أبي عبد الله يحيى بن الحسن عن أبي الحسين بن الآبنوسي أنا أحمد بن عبيد بن الفضل وعن أبي نعيم محمد بن عبد الواحد بن عبد العزيز أنا علي بن محمد بن خزفة قالا نا محمد بن الحسن نا ابن أبي خيثمة نا محمد بن عباد نا سفيان عن عمار الدهني قال سمعت أبا الطفيل يقول رأيت المسيب بن نجبة أتى به ملببة يعني ابن السوداء وعلي على المنبر فقال علي ما شأنه فقال يكذب على الله وعلى رسوله Abu ‘Abd Allah Yahya b.

al-Hasan – Abu al-Husayn b. al-Abnusi – Ahmad b. ‘Ubayd b. al-Fadhl and Abu Na’im Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahid b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz – ‘Ali b. Muhammad b. Khazafah and Muhammad b. al-Hasan – Ibn Abi Khaythamah – Muhammad b. ‘Abbad – Sufyan – Ammar al-Duhni – Abu al-Tufayl: I saw al-Musayyab b. Najabah, bringing him – that was Ibn al-Sawda - while ‘Ali was on the pulpit.

So, ‘Ali said, “What is his problem?” He replied, “He lies upon Allah and upon His Messenger.”[^4] This report suffers from the same fatal defect as the first. We do not know who this Ibn al-Sawda was, and there is no reliable Sunni riwayah to connect him to ‘Abd Allah b. Saba. Meanwhile, even if we assumed, for the sake of argument, that he was Ibn Saba, the athar still does not prove any of the primary Sunni claims about him.

For instance, it does not prove that he was negative towards Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, or that he believed in the succession or ‘isma (sinlessness) of Amir al-Muminin ‘Ali, ‘alaihi al-salam . It also says nothing about ‘Abd Allah b. Saba’s alleged belief in al-raj’ah or his claimed participation in the bloody overthrow of ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan. It is therefore basically an utterly valueless report, as long as Ibn Saba is concerned. Narration Three Imam Ibn Abi Khaythamah (d.

279 H) reports: حدثنا محمد بن عباد المكي قال نا سفيان قال نا عبد الجبار بن عباس الهمداني عن سلمة عن حجية بن عدي الكندي :رأيت عليا على المنبر وهو يقول من يعذرني من هذا الحميت الأسود الذي يكذب على الله يعني ابن السوداء Muhammad b. ‘Abbad – Sufyan – ‘Abd al-Jabbar b. ‘Abbas al-Hamdani – Salamah – Hujayyah b.