Neither the Prophet ﷺ, nor Bilāl, nor any of his Companions awoke until the sun had shone upon them. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the first to rouse, and in alarm he called out:

“O Bilāl!”

Bilāl replied, “The One who took hold of your soul has taken hold of mine. May my father and mother be ransomed for you, O Messenger of Allah.”

They then led their mounts on a little way, after which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed ablution. He ordered Bilāl to give the iqāmah for the prayer,(1) and he led them in the dawn prayer. When he had finished, he said:

“Whoever forgets a prayer, let him offer it when he remembers it, for Allah the Exalted has said: ‘And establish the prayer for My remembrance.’(2)”

Yūnus added: Ibn Shihāb used to recite the verse exactly in this wording.

Muslim likewise transmitted the report(3) from Ḥarmalah ibn Yaḥyā, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb, with the same chain, noting that the incident occurred on their return from Khaybar.

In the narration of Shuʿbah, from Jāmiʿ ibn Shaddād, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī ʿAlqamah, from Ibn Masʿūd, it is stated that this happened on their way back from al-Ḥudaybiyyah. One version says Bilāl was the one assigned to keep watch, while another says Ibn Masʿūd himself was on guard.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī(4) observed that the incident may have occurred twice. He added that, in the narration of ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn and Abū Qatādah about oversleeping the prayer—which also contains the story of the water-skin—this could be one of those two occasions, or a third altogether. He further related that al-Wāqidī, in Abū Qatādah’s report, places the event on their return from the expedition of Tabūk, and that Zāfir ibn Sulaymān, via Shuʿbah, from Jāmiʿ ibn Shaddād, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Ibn Masʿūd, likewise locates it on the return from Tabūk. Allah knows best.

Al-Bayhaqī then cited(5) what the author of al-Ṣaḥīḥ(6) recorded about ʿAwf the Bedouin, through Abū Rajāʾ, from ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, concerning their oversleeping the prayer and the woman who possessed the two water-skins—how the army drank its fill from them without their contents diminishing in the least.

He also mentioned what Muslim transmitted(7) through Thābit al-Banānī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rabāḥ, from Abū Qatādah—a lengthy ḥadīth that likewise contains the incident of oversleeping the prayer and the multiplication of water from that very vessel.