has overlooked its hidden flaw and been taken in by the outward soundness of the isnād—so be on your guard.
His statement under “The supplications reported for seeking rain”:
- Al-Shāfiʿī said: “It is related from Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from his father, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ, that when he performed the rain-prayer he would say: ‘O Allah, give us reviving, saving rain … O Allah, we ask Your forgiveness—for You have always been All-Forgiving—so send down the sky upon us in abundant torrents.’”
I say: What appears in al-Umm (1/222) is the wording, “Sālim narrated …,” with the preposition ‘from’ (ʿan) omitted. The author restored it, following Ibn al-Qayyim in al-Zād. Yet the chain is broken, as you can see, and I have found no one who connected it so that it might be scrutinised.
His statement under no. 3: “He should say, when the waters rise and excessive rain is feared: ‘O Allah, make it a rain of mercy, not a rain of punishment, calamity, destruction, or drowning. O Allah, let it fall upon the hills and the places where trees grow. O Allah, around us, not upon us.’ All of that is authentically established from the Prophet ﷺ.”
I say: The first supplication is unsound, for al-Shāfiʿī transmitted it through Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad, on the authority of al-Muṭṭalib ibn Ḥanṭab, as a mursal report. Al-Bayhaqī recorded it (3/356) and remarked, “This is mursal.”
On that basis it was judged defective in al-Muntaqā, and its commentator al-Shawkānī followed suit (4/9). This criticism, however, is far from adequate, because Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad—namely Ibn Abī Yahyā al-Aslamī al-Madanī—is abandoned and accused of lying. Perhaps for that reason none of those who compiled collections of invocations and litanies, such as al-Nawawī, al-Jazarī, Ibn al-Qayyim, and others, cited it.
As for what comes after it, the wording is found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs in the ḥadith of Anas mentioned in the book, and it is also documented in Irwāʾ (2/144–145), where I said: