A number of exegetical narrations speak of prior knowledge of the Noble Messenger of Islam and Amir al-Mu’minin in the worlds preceding this world. This study demonstrates, based on biographical and bibliographical data, that this notion can be regarded as an authentic Qur’anic-hadith teaching. The research also reveals that some of the evaluations of narrators by biographers such as Ibn al-Ghada’iri and al-Najashi were based on an ijtihadi textual criticism and arose from unacceptable assumptions of the Baghdad school concerning the rejection of the worlds of “Dhar” and “Azillah” and the invalidity of narrations concerning the inner meaning of the Qur’an. In contrast, the existence of sound chains of transmission, together with the multiplicity of chains containing distinguished Imami narrators and the absence of a common intermediary link, constitutes an important indication of the authenticity of this doctrinal belief. Moreover, tracing these narrations in the earliest Shiite hadith sources and their transmission into later hadith compilations such as al-Kafi, Basa’ir, and Tahdhib indicates the acceptance of this teaching within the Imami hadith tradition.