From Abū Isḥāq, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Wahb, from Khabbāb, who said:

“We complained to the Prophet ﷺ about the intense heat of the scorching ground, but he did not grant us relief” — meaning with respect to the prayer. Ibn Jaʿfar adds: “yet he did not relieve us.”

He also said (1): “Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd narrated to us; Shuʿbah narrated to us from Abū Isḥāq, who said: I heard Saʿīd ibn Wahb say: I heard Khabbāb say, ‘We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the burning ground (2), yet he did not relieve us.’ Shuʿbah commented: ‘That was with regard to the Ẓuhr prayer’ (3).”

Muslim, al-Nasāʾī, and al-Bayhaqī likewise reported it (4) through Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, from Saʿīd ibn Wahb, from Khabbāb: “We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the heat of the scorched ground — al-Bayhaqī’s wording adds: ‘upon our faces and our palms’ — but he did not relieve us (5).”

In another version (6): “We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about praying on the burning ground, but he did not relieve us.”

Ibn Mājah also transmitted it (7) from ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭanāfisī, from Wakīʿ, from al-Aʿmash, from Abū Isḥāq, from Ḥārithah ibn Muḍarrib (8) al-ʿAbdī, from Khabbāb, who said: “We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the heat of the scorching ground, yet he did not relieve us.”

What occurs to me — and Allah knows best — is that this report is an abridged form of the first narration. Their complaint to him ﷺ concerned what they were suffering at the hands of the idolaters: torture by means of the blazing ground, being dragged on their faces so that they shielded themselves with their palms, and other kinds of torment, as related by Ibn Isḥāq and others. They asked him ﷺ to invoke Allah against the idolaters or to grant them victory over them. He promised them that, but did not carry it out at that very moment. Instead, he informed them about those who came before them: how they endured torture even harsher than what had afflicted them yet were not turned away from their religion. He gave them glad tidings that Allah would surely bring this matter to completion, make it manifest, proclaim it, spread it, and grant it victory throughout the lands and horizons until a lone rider could travel from Ṣanʿāʾ to Ḥaḍramawt fearing none but Allah ﷻ and the wolf for his sheep — “but you are impatient.”

For this reason the narrator said: “We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the heat of the scorching ground upon our faces and palms, yet he did not relieve us,” meaning that he did not supplicate for us at that very moment. Accordingly, whoever cites this ḥadīth as proof either for refusing to delay the noon prayer until the heat subsides (al-ibrād) or for obligating the worshiper’s palms to touch the ground — as is one of the two positions attributed to al-Shāfiʿī — has a tenuous argument. Allah knows best.