The words that were attributed to ‘Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) – Did you come to know your Lord through Muhammad…? – are words that are to be found in the books of the Shi‘ah as part of a long story. The evidence that this is a lie is obvious in this report, as they use it to impugn Abu Bakr and ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with them) and cast aspersions on their knowledge, and they narrate it with an isnaad that is not free of narrators who were accused of lying and narrators who are unknown.

There is no authentic Hadith specifying the age of Imam Mahdi at his emergence. Some inauthentic narrations suggest he will appear at 40, but scholars classify these as unreliable. The conclusion among scholars is that no sound Hadith confirms his age.

Thinking to oneself whilst praying about things that have nothing to do with the prayer detracts from its reward, but it does not invalidate the prayer altogether.

There is no basis for this hadith in the books of Ahl as-Sunnah; rather it is mentioned only by the Shi‘ah in their books.

-Muslims must believe in all the books that were sent down from Allah. So we believe in general terms in the books of which we do not know the details, without specifying their number. -We believe in the books that we know, according to what we know of their details from the texts of Revelation. -As for the Hadith which mentions 104 books, it does not have any reliable chain of narration.

The Muslim should verify what he tells and narrates, and he should not narrate anything before checking whether it is sound.