[1] Scholars consider the attribution of this work to Sulaym ibn Qays, who himself may have been a legendary figure, to be false.
[2] The earliest known reference to the book was in the Kitāb al-Ghayba by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Nu'mani (tenth century).
Hossein Modarressi dates the original core of this work to the final years of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik's reign (r. 723–743), which would make it one of the oldest Islamic books that are still extant.
[citation needed] However, the scholars Ahmad ibn Ubayda (d. 941) and Abu Abd Allah al-Ghadhanfari (d. 1020) considered the book to be unreliable on the basis of three factors: a segment in the book indicates there were thirteen Imams instead of the traditionally held twelve; another segment states that Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr rebuked his dying father Abu Bakr despite Muhammad being a three-year-old child; and the book was purportedly transmitted by Aban ibn Abi Ayyash at a time when the latter was only fourteen years old.
[8] Currently, several variant manuscripts of this book exist, and it has been suggested that content was added to it and altered in it over time.