—the people?’ They replied, ‘O Messenger of Allah, we had already prayed in our dwellings.’ He said, ‘Do not do that. If one of you has prayed in his quarters and then reaches the prayer with the imam, let him pray with him, for it will be counted for him as a voluntary act.’ One of the two then said, ‘Ask forgiveness for me, O Messenger of Allah,’ so he asked forgiveness for him.

The people then surged toward the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and I surged with them—I was that day the youngest and strongest of the men. I kept pushing my way through until I reached the Messenger of Allah, took hold of his hand, and placed it either upon my face or upon my chest. I found nothing cooler or more fragrant than the hand of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. This took place, he said, in the Mosque of al-Khayf.

The same report is also transmitted through Aswad ibn ʿĀmir and Abū al-Naḍr, from Shuʿbah, from Yaʿlā ibn ʿAṭāʾ: I heard Jābir ibn Yazīd ibn al-Aswad recount from his father that he prayed the dawn prayer with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He went on to say, ‘The people then rose and began taking his hand, wiping their faces with it. I too took his hand and wiped my face with it, and found it colder than ice and more fragrant than musk.’(1)

Abū Dāwūd likewise records it(2) through Shuʿbah, and al-Tirmidhī and al-Nasāʾī(3) through Hishām from Yaʿlā; al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.

Imām Aḥmad also said(4): Abū Nuʿaym related to us; Misʿar related to us, from ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Wāʾil ibn Ḥujr, who said: My household told me—from my father—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was brought a bucket of water. He drank from it, then rinsed his mouth into the bucket and poured it into the well—or he drank from the bucket and then rinsed into the well—and from it there emanated a scent like that of musk.(5) Al-Bayhaqī(6) likewise reports it through the route of Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān, from Abū Nuʿaym—al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn—with this wording.

Imām Aḥmad further said: Hāshim related to us; Sulaymān related to us, from Thābit, from Anas, who said: Whenever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had performed the dawn prayer, the servants of Madinah would bring their vessels of water, and no container would be presented to him without his dipping his hand into it; sometimes they came to him on a bitterly cold morning, yet he would still dip his hand into it.(7)