seeking something, so that one intercedes for the other, unlike a lone petitioner for whom no one else intercedes.

This addition has several defects: this narrator alone transmitted it, whereas those more eminent and more accurate in their retention did not; the compilers of the Sunan collections omitted it; its wording is inconsistent; and its narrator is known to have transmitted objectionable hadiths from this same Rawh. Such considerations give rise to doubt about its authenticity, so it cannot serve as evidence. What counts is what the Companion narrated, not his understanding of it, when the wording he narrated does not support that understanding but instead indicates the contrary.

It is clear that if someone, after the Prophet’s death, were to say:

“O Allah, accept his intercession for me, and accept my intercession concerning him,”

when the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—had not supplicated for him, these words would be invalid. Moreover, Uthmān ibn Hunayf did not instruct him to ask the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—for anything, nor to say, “Accept his intercession for me.” He did not instruct him to recite the transmitted supplication in its proper form, but only part of it. There was no intercession from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in this situation, nor anything that might be thought to constitute intercession. Had someone said after his death, “Accept his intercession for me,” these words would have had no meaning. This is why Uthmān did not instruct him to say them.

He did not prescribe the supplication transmitted from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and what he did prescribe was not transmitted from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Something of this kind cannot establish a religious prescription, just as other accounts transmitted from individual Companions concerning acts of worship, permissions, obligations or prohibitions cannot do so when no one else among