He (AS) used to say: O Doer of Good, the offender has come to You! You have commanded the doer of good to pardon the offender; You are the Doer of Good and I am the offender. By the right of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, and pardon the ugliness that You know of me. (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 1, p. 30)
The narrator says: The Commander of the Faithful (AS) would often pray thus: O merciful God! A sinful servant has come to Your door! You Yourself commanded us to pass over the faults of others; now I am the wrongdoer and You are the merciful God. I ask You, by the right of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, to pass over my faults!
It is related from al-Sadiq (AS) that he said: Whoever among you performs the four-rak'a prayer of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) will emerge from his sins as on the day his mother bore him, and his needs will be granted. In each rak'a he recites al-Hamd once and 'Say: He is God, the One' fifty times. (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 1, p. 292)
Imam al-Sadiq (AS) said: The special prayer of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) is four rak'as, and in each rak'a, after al-Hamd, the sura of Tawhid is recited fifty times. Whoever performs this prayer is so cleansed of sins that it is as though his mother had borne him this very day; and his needs are also fulfilled.
When the Commander of the Faithful (AS) wished to break his fast, he would say: In the name of God. O God, for You we have fasted, and upon Your provision we break our fast; so accept it from us, for You are indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 2, p. 626)
The narrator says: At the time of breaking the fast, the Commander of the Faithful (AS) would say: In the name of God. O God, for You we fasted, and with Your provision we have broken our fast; accept it from us, for You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.
Abu al-Bakhtari Wahb ibn Wahb related from Abu Abdillah (AS), from his father, from Ali (AS), who said: It pleased him to free himself for worship on four nights of the year: the first night of Rajab, the night of mid-Sha'ban, the night of al-Fitr, and the night of the sacrifice. And it is recommended to perform the ritual bath on such a night after sunset. (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 2, p. 648)
The narrator says: It was the custom of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) to seclude himself with his God on four nights of the year: the first night of Rajab, the night of mid-Sha'ban, the night of Eid al-Fitr, and the night of Eid al-Adha. On these nights, at the beginning of the night after sunset, he would perform the ritual bath.
(We note: the narration of al-Harith ibn Abdillah from him adds the first night of Muharram and the night of the tenth of Muharram to these four; and the narration of Sa'id ibn Sa'd from Imam al-Rida (AS) says that the Commander of the Faithful (AS) would keep vigil and spend in worship the night of Eid al-Fitr, the night of mid-Sha'ban, and the night of the twenty-third of the month of Ramadan.)
It is related of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) that he used to fast during it [Rajab] and say: Rajab is my month, Sha'ban is the month of the Messenger of God (PBUH), and the month of Ramadan is the month of God the Exalted. (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 2, p. 797)
The narrator says: The Commander of the Faithful (AS) used to fast in the month of Rajab and would say: Rajab is my month, Sha'ban is the month of the Messenger of God, and the month of Ramadan is the month of God.
It is related that Kumayl ibn Ziyad al-Nakha'i saw the Commander of the Faithful (AS) in prostration on the night of mid-Sha'ban, supplicating with this prayer: 'O God, I ask You by Your mercy, which embraces all things...' (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 2, p. 844)
It is related from Kumayl ibn Ziyad that the Commander of the Faithful (AS) recited the supplication known as the Supplication of Kumayl on the night of mid-Sha'ban, in prostration and weeping.
Safwan al-Jammal related from Abu Abdillah Ja'far ibn Muhammad (AS), who said: The Commander of the Faithful (AS) was born on a Sunday, when seven nights of Sha'ban had passed. (Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 2, p. 852)
Safwan al-Jammal relates from Imam al-Sadiq (AS) that the Commander of the Faithful (AS) was born on Sunday, the seventh of the month of Sha'ban.
(We note: the well-known view concerning the birth of the Commander of the Faithful (AS), as you know, is the month of Rajab — namely, the thirteenth of Rajab in the thirtieth year of the Year of the Elephant, ten years before the prophetic mission and twenty-three years before the Hijra, corresponding to the eighteenth of Mehr, the tenth of October 660 CE. Qunduzi, however, holds the tenth of that month, and Shaykh al-Mufid in Masar al-Shia the twenty-third of that month, to be the day of his birth.
Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Qummi, a contemporary of Shaykh al-Saduq and author of the History of Qom, likewise placed his birth in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal, but did not specify a day.
Mas'udi held that Fatima bint Asad's pregnancy began in Dhu al-Hijja and that his birth took place in the middle of the month of Ramadan.
The astronomer al-Hasib al-Tabari, in the Zij-i Mufrad, places his birth on the twenty-second of the month of Ramadan.
Abu Rayhan al-Biruni placed his birth on the eighth of the month of Jumada al-Ula.
Likewise, Shaykh al-Tusi in the Amali — and, following him, Majlisi in Bihar al-Anwar — holds the eighth of Dhu al-Hijja to be the day of his birth.
Majlisi, in volume 35 of Bihar, placed his birth on the twenty-third of Sha'ban.
According to the very narration we have cited, Shaykh al-Tusi considers his birth to be on the seventh of the month of Sha'ban.
So there are, in all, nine opinions concerning his birth.
As for the place of his birth, the Shia sources are in agreement that he was born inside the Kaaba. Likewise, those Sunni sources that have addressed the matter state it explicitly. Among them: Abu Zakariyya al-Azdi (334 AH), Ibn al-Qaffal al-Shafi'i (365), Hakim al-Nishaburi, Ibn Talha al-Shafi'i, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, Ganji al-Shafi'i, Juwayni, Banakati (730 AH), Ibn al-Sabbagh al-Maliki, Diyar Bakri, Jami, and Halabi Badakhshani (1126 AH) — all state explicitly that Ali (AS) was born in the Kaaba. Nevertheless, Ibn Abi al-Hadid the Mu'tazilite (656 AH), after relating this as the belief of the Shia, added that the hadith scholars of the Sunnis do not acknowledge it.)