it reads in almost the same terms, except that it says, “they said” in place of “ʿUmar said.” Had the Companions not already possessed this knowledge—having learned it from him ﷺ—they would never have ventured such a remark. And even if we grant that they spoke hastily, objecting without prior instruction, the Prophet’s ﷺ duty to convey the message would then have required him to clarify that their belief was mistaken and had no foundation in the Law. Yet in none of the reports do we find any such clarification. All he said to them was: “You do not hear what I say any better than they do.” As you can see, this does not establish a general rule concerning all the dead that would overturn their previous understanding. Rather, it is merely an explanation about the people of the Badr well alone—and even that, as noted earlier, was not unrestricted. Their hearing was confined to that specific moment and to the very words the Prophet ﷺ addressed to them. It was a unique, case-specific incident and therefore cannot serve as evidence that the dead always hear everything that is said to them, nor does it include any other deceased person whatsoever.

The explicit proof is found in what Aḥmad recorded (3/287) from the hadith of Anas (may Allah be pleased with him). He said:

The narration is sound. ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) heard his voice and exclaimed, “Messenger of Allah, are you calling out to them after three days? Do they hear? Allah says: ‘Indeed, you cannot make the dead hear.’” He replied, “By Him in whose hand is my soul, you do not hear what I say any better than they do, but they are unable to respond.”

Its chain is authentic according to the conditions set by Muslim.

ʿUmar thus stated plainly that the cited verse was the basis of their objection, and from its general wording they understood that the people of the well were included in its scope. For that reason the matter puzzled them, so they expressed their concern to the Prophet ﷺ, who resolved their difficulty with the explanation just mentioned.