Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah and others related, through Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, from Qays, from Saʿd, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “O Allah, make his shot hit the mark and answer his supplication.”

Sayyār ibn Bashīr transmitted the same report from Qays, from Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say to Saʿd: “O Allah, guide his arrow, answer his prayer, and endear him to Your servants.”

It is also reported from Ibn ʿAbbās—in one version narrated by Muḥammad ibn ʿĀʾidh al-Dimashqī—through al-Haytham ibn Ḥumayd, from Muṭʿim, from al-Miqdām and others: Saʿd said, “O Messenger of Allah, pray to Allah that He answer my supplication.” He replied, “Allah does not answer the supplication of a servant until his food is lawful and wholesome.” Saʿd said, “O Messenger of Allah, then beseech Allah to purify my food,” so he prayed for him.

They said: After that Saʿd was so scrupulous that if he found even a single ear of grain that had strayed into his field, he would return it to the place from which it had come.

Saʿd was indeed one whose prayers were answered; scarcely would he invoke Allah with a supplication but that it was granted. Among the most famous instances is what is recorded in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, through the chain of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr, from Jābir ibn Samurah (1): the people of Kūfah complained to ʿUmar about Saʿd in every matter—even claiming that he did not know how to pray properly. Saʿd said, “By Allah, I do not fall short: I lead them in the very prayer of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—I lengthen the first two rakʿahs and shorten the last two (2).” ʿUmar replied, “That is what we think of you, Abū Isḥāq.” (3)

ʿUmar had dispatched envoys to inquire about him in the districts of Kūfah. They did not enter a mosque without its people praising Saʿd—until they came to the mosque of Banū ʿAbs, where a man called Abū Saʿdah Usāmah ibn Qatādah stood up and said, “Saʿd does not march with the expedition, does not divide the spoils equally, and is not just in judgement.” When Saʿd was informed of what he had said, he prayed: “O Allah, if this servant of Yours has spoken only for show and reputation, then prolong his life, lengthen his poverty, take away his sight, and expose him to temptations.”

The narrator continued: I later saw him—an old man whose eyebrows drooped over his eyes—standing in the road winking at young girls. When people reproached him he would say, “An old man afflicted by Saʿd’s supplication.” In another unusual version: he lived to witness the turmoil of al-Mukhtār ibn Abī ʿUbayd and was killed in it. (4)

Al-Ṭabarānī said: (5) Yūsuf the Qāḍī narrated to us; ʿAmr ibn Marzūq narrated to us; Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Saʿd ibn Ibrāhīm, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, who said: “A slave-girl of Saʿd named Zabrāʾ once went out wearing a new tunic…"