The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Treat al-ʿAbbās well, for he is my uncle and the counterpart of my father.”
Its chain of transmission is weak (1).
Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah al-Taymī narrated—from Abū Suhayl ibn Mālik, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from Saʿd:
“We were with the Prophet ﷺ in Naqīʿ al-Khayl (2) when al-ʿAbbās approached. The Prophet ﷺ declared, ‘This is al-ʿAbbās, the uncle of your Prophet, the most open-handed of Quraysh and the foremost among them in maintaining kinship ties (3).’”
It was transmitted by several narrators on his authority.
It is likewise soundly established in the report of Anas that ʿUmar sought rain and said, “O Allah, when drought struck during the lifetime of Your Prophet we turned to You through him; now we turn to You through the uncle of Your Prophet, al-ʿAbbās (4).”
(1) He is not merely weak, but far worse: Malik branded Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Dumayra a liar; Abu Hatim said, “His hadith must be abandoned—he is an impostor”; Ahmad judged him “worthless”; Ibn Maʿin declared him “neither reliable nor trustworthy”; and Bukhari ruled that his reports are munkar al-hadith and weak.
(2) Al-Naqiʿ—spelled with a nun and qaf (misprinted in the edition as al-Baqiʿ with a ba)—lies twenty farsakhs from Madinah and measures roughly one mile by eight miles. The Prophet set it aside as a protected pasture for the Muslims’ horses. See: Abu ʿUbayd, Al-Amwal, p. 376; Musnad Ahmad, 2/91, 155, 157; Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 4/158; Sunan al-Bayhaqi, 6/146.
(3) Al-Hakim (3/328) transmitted the report through Yaʿqub ibn Muhammad al-Zuhri from Muhammad ibn Talha and declared it sound; al-Dhahabi agreed, though he noted that Yaʿqub “frequently errs.” Al-Hakim, however, supplied a corroborating isnad via Ahmad ibn Salih, and another corroboration comes from ʿAli ibn al-Madini. Ahmad (1/185) likewise related it through ʿAli ibn ʿAbd Allah → Muhammad ibn Talha al-Taymi → Abu Suhayl Nafiʿ ibn Malik → Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib → Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas, who said that the Messenger of Allah told ʿAbbas: “This ʿAbbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib is the most open-handed and the keenest at maintaining kinship bonds among Quraysh.” The chain is strong. Al-Haythami (Majmaʿ, 9/268) added that the hadith is also in al-Bazzar, Abu Yaʿla, and al-Tabarani’s Al-Awsat; he remarked that Muhammad ibn Talha al-Taymi was deemed trustworthy by several critics, and that the remaining narrators in Ahmad and Abu Yaʿla are those of the two Sahihs.
(4) Reported by Bukhari, 2/413 (Book of Rain Prayer, chapter “The people ask the imam for istisqaʾ in times of drought”) and 7/62 (Virtues of the Companions, chapter on the mention of ʿAbbas), through al-Hasan ibn Muhammad → Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Ansari → Abu Abd Allah ibn al-Muthanna → Thumama → Anas, who narrated that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab…