He then said to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĀmir ibn Rabīʿah, “Stand and relate to the people what you have just related to me.” ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĀmir said: “In the time of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) the people were overtaken by rain, so they refrained from going out to the prayer-ground. ʿUmar therefore gathered them in the mosque and led them in prayer. He then mounted the pulpit and said:
‘O people, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to go out with the community to the prayer-ground and lead them there because it was easier for them and more spacious, and because the mosque could not accommodate them. When we have rain such as this, however, the mosque is the more convenient place.’”

The reply is that this report is extremely weak. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz—namely Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, the judge—was described by al-Bukhārī as “repudiated in ḥadith,” while al-Nasāʾī said, “He is discarded.” Al-Shāfiʿī recorded the account in al-Umm (1/207) through another chain from Abān, but without the Prophetic wording and without the explanatory statement ascribed to ʿUmar. That chain, too, is very weak, for it passes through Ibrāhīm, al-Shāfiʿī’s shaykh—namely Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Yahyā al-Aslamī.