Allah, exalted is He, revealed to one of the prophets: “What is the matter with My servants? They enter My houses—meaning the mosques—with hearts that are not pure and hands that are not clean. Do they presume upon Me? Do they imagine they can deceive Me? By My might, My majesty, and My exaltedness on high, I shall surely test them with a trial that will leave even the forbearing utterly bewildered; none of them will be spared except the one who pleads with the supplication of a drowning man.” (1)
31 – Abu Bakr ibn al-Naqur (2) informed us; Abu Talib al-Yusufi informed us; Abu ʿAli ibn al-Mudhhib informed us; Abu Bakr al-Qaṭiʿi narrated to us; ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad narrated to us; my father narrated to us; ʿAffan narrated to us; Hammam ibn Yahya said: I heard Qatadah relate from Anas ibn Malik that Malik ibn Saʿsaʿah told him that the Prophet of Allah ﷺ recounted to them the events of the night he was taken on the Night Journey. He said: “While we were in the ḥaṭim (the semi-circular enclosure adjoining the Kaʿba)—and Qatadah would sometimes say: in the ḥijr—(I was reclining) (3) when a visitor came to me.” He then mentioned the remainder of the report, saying: “Then….”
(1) The invocation of a drowning person may be the same as the invocation in distress (du’a al-kurb). As reported by al-Bukhari (with commentary), 11/145, from Ibn ʿAbbas that the Prophet, peace be upon him, would say in distress: “There is no god but Allah, Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth and Lord of the Noble Throne.” Al-Dhahabi also records this hadith in Al-ʿUluww, p. 44, and remarks that al-Tabarani narrated it although it is not authentic, yet it remains possible. I did not find it in al-Tabarani’s al-Kabir. It is also transmitted by Abu Nu‘aym in Al-Hilya, 3/48, who then reports another hadith—both through Wahb ibn Rashid from Farqad—and adds: “The Shaykh said: ‘These three hadiths in this wording were narrated on the authority of Anas only by Farqad, and from him only by Wahb ibn Rashid; neither Wahb nor Farqad are to be used as proof, nor are their solitary narrations acceptable.’”
I would add: as for Farqad, he is Ibn Ya‘qub al-Subkhi, whom al-Hafiz describes as “trustworthy and devout but weak in hadith, prone to many errors” (At-Taqrib 2/8). As for Wahb ibn Rashid al-Raqi (also called al-Basri), Ibn ‘Adi states: “He narrated from Thabit, Malik ibn Dinar, and Farqad al-Subkhi, but his transmission from them is not sound” (Al-Kamil 7/2529); al-Daraqutni said: “He is abandoned”; and Ibn Hibban declared: “He must never be used as proof under any circumstances” (Al-Mizan 4/352). Thus the chain of this hadith is very weak.
(2) In manuscript (M) it reads “al-zuqur,” which is an error.
(3) Not found in other copies.