“They Relied Upon SALIM’s Book, Which is Not Reliable”

There are some people who are not pleased by deriving evidence from the traditions recorded in the book written by SALIM ibn Qais which deal with al-Zahra’ (A.S.). Says one of them, “Bring me anything recorded in a book other than this one.” What is the secret of taking such a stand towards SALIM and his book?

He even says, “The book of SALIM ibn Qais, which is the authority on the subject (these are his own words), is not reliable according to the testimony of Shaikh al-Mufid and others, and there is in it a great deal of mix-up as everyone knows.”

We say the following:

 

FIRST: SALIM’s book is not the authority in what has come to us of the bulk of events which al-Zahra’ (A.S.) underwent. Added to what SALIM’s book contains are numerous narrations consecutively reported from the Infallible Imams (A.S.) as well as historical texts which support each other and which historians of various sects have reported. Int this book, we will cite many of them by the will of Allah Almighty.

 

SECOND: SALIM’s book is regarded to be one of the first of what the ancient generations wrote, and it represents the basics and what is fixed of this sect in general terms and what the scholars endorsed and accepted and with which they were pleased. We do not find in it any traces of the alleged “mix-up” nor did the person who makes such a claim provide one single example in support of his claim. Nothing in it suggests to us the existence of any “mix-up” other than such a claim.

Perhaps some people are not pleased with it because they do not agree with a great deal of its contents. Rather, it contradicts what the man suggests. We have no reason to exclude SALIM’s book from our historical and doctrinal education. Its seniority and the personal interaction between its author and the Commander of the Faithful (A.S.) and a number of Imams after him gives it preference over all other books written scores of years after it.

In order to make the picture clearer, so that it may become more obvious and more precisely expressive of the truth about this book and the prestige it enjoys and the “justifications,” if any, of such doubts, we would like to say the following: