and complained to him about this. Uthmān ibn Hunayf said to him:

“Go to the ablution place and perform ablution, then go to the mosque and pray two units of prayer. Then say: ‘O Allah, I ask You and turn to You through our Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy. O Muhammad, I turn through you to my Lord so that He may fulfill my need.’ Then mention your need, and then set out so that I may go with you.”

He said: The man went and did this. Afterwards, he came to Uthmān ibn Affān. The doorkeeper took him by the hand and brought him before Uthmān, who seated him beside himself on the rug and said, “Tell me what you need.” He mentioned his need, and Uthmān fulfilled it for him.

The man then left and met Uthmān ibn Hunayf. He said to him, “May Allah reward you with good. He would neither look into my need nor pay me any attention until you spoke to him on my behalf.”

Uthmān ibn Hunayf replied: “I did not speak to him. Rather, I heard the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—speak when a blind man came to him complaining of the loss of his sight. The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said to him, ‘Would you be patient?’

“He replied, ‘O Messenger of Allah, I have no one to guide me, and this has become difficult for me.’ He said, ‘Go to the ablution place, perform ablution, and pray two units of prayer. Then say: “O Allah, I ask You and turn to You through Your Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy. O Muhammad, I turn to my Lord so that He may remove the affliction from my sight. O Allah, accept his intercession on my behalf, and accept my intercession on my own behalf.”’”

Uthmān ibn Hunayf said: “By Allah, we had neither dispersed nor been talking long before the man came in, as though he had never suffered any affliction.”

Al-Bayhaqī said: “Ahmad ibn Shabīb ibn Saīd also narrated it in full from his father.” He then presented it through the narration of Yaqūb ibn Sufyān from Ahmad ibn Shabīb ibn Saīd.

He said: “Hishām al-Dastawā’ī also narrated it from Abū Jafar, from Abū Umāmah ibn Sahl, from his uncle—namely, Uthmān ibn Hunayf.” He did not mention the chains of transmission for these routes.