This article explores the possibility of mutual legitimation between Sunni religious foundations and Abbasid political interests. The main argument centers on anecdotes that elevate the images of al-ʿAbbās as imam and of his son Ibn ʿAbbās as the expert of the science of hadith. It shows the overall relation between historical and religious anecdotes, and how the medieval reader could not accept the authority of hadith collections from their first student, Ibn ʿAbbās, without accepting the political primacy of the Abbasid (...) family from the early days of Islam. (shrink)