He turned aside toward a tree and dismounted, then said,
“Look—do you see anyone?”
I answered, “Here is one rider; here are two,” and kept counting until they were seven.
He said, “Guard our prayer for us.”
We lay down and fell asleep; nothing woke us but the heat of the sun. We rose, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ mounted and we rode with him for a short while. Then he dismounted and asked,
“Do you have any water?”
I said, “Yes, I have a small water-skin with a little water in it.”
“Bring it,” he said.
I brought it to him and he said, “Let everyone touch it—take a little from it.” The people performed ablution, and one mouthful remained. He then said, “Keep it safe, Abu Qatādah, for it will soon have a story.”
Bilāl gave the call to prayer; we prayed the two units before dawn and then the Fajr prayer. He mounted again and so did we. Some of us said to the others, “We have been negligent with our prayer.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “What are you discussing? If it concerns your worldly affairs, that is up to you; but if it concerns your religion, then bring it to me.”
We said, “Messenger of Allah, we fell short regarding our prayer.”
He replied, “There is no negligence when one is asleep; negligence is only when one is awake. Whenever that happens, pray it, and on the following day pray it at its proper time.”
He then added, “Think well of the people.” They said, “But yesterday you told us, ‘If you do not reach water tomorrow you will be thirsty,’ and the people have gone on to the water.”
When morning came and the people realized the Prophet ﷺ was missing, some said to one another, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ must be at the water.” Abu Bakr and ʿUmar were among them. They both declared, “People! The Messenger of Allah ﷺ would never go on ahead of you to the water and leave you behind. If the people obey Abu Bakr and ʿUmar they will be rightly guided.” They repeated this three times.
When the midday heat grew intense, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ appeared. They cried, “Messenger of Allah, we are perishing of thirst—our throats are parched!” He said, “You will not perish.”
Then he said, “Abu Qatādah, bring the water-skin.” I brought it to him.
“Untie my ghumr”—meaning his cup—he said. I untied it and handed it to him. He began pouring water into it and giving the people to drink, and they crowded around him. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “O people, drink in an orderly way; every one of you will leave fully quenched.”
The people drank until only the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and I were left. He poured some for me and said, “Drink, Abu Qatādah.”
I replied, “You drink first, Messenger of Allah.”
He said, “The server of the people drinks last.” So I drank, and then he drank after me. About the same amount of water remained in the skin as had been there at the start, though that day we were three hundred men.
ʿAbd Allāh said: Imrān ibn Ḥuṣayn heard me narrating this ḥadīth in the congregational mosque. He asked, “Who is that man?” I answered, “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rabāḥ al-Anṣārī.” He said, “The people of a report know it best. Be careful how you recount it, for I was one of the seven that night.” When I finished he remarked, “I never thought anyone besides me had memorised this ḥadīth.”