namely, turning to Allah with supplication and seeking forgiveness. In Sūrah Nūḥ He says: “So I said, ‘Seek forgiveness from your Lord; truly He is ever-Forgiving. He will send down abundant rain from the sky…’” (71:10-11). This is exactly what ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb did when he sought rain by means of the prayer of al-ʿAbbās, as has already been explained. It was likewise the constant practice of the righteous predecessors: whenever drought struck, they would perform the prayer for rain and beseech Allah. Never—under any circumstance—has it been reported that any one of them turned to the Prophet’s grave and asked him to pray for rainfall. Had such an act been prescribed, they would have done it at least once; their complete abandonment of it proves that the practice described in the story has no legal basis.

Third: Even supposing the story were sound, it still carries no evidentiary weight, because it hinges on an unnamed man—an anonymous figure whose status is therefore unknown. Identifying him as Bilāl in the version transmitted by Sayf is worthless, for this Sayf—Sayf ibn ʿUmar al-Tamīmī—is unanimously judged weak by the scholars of hadith. Ibn Ḥibbān said of him, “He narrates fabricated reports from reliable transmitters,” adding that he used to invent hadiths. A narrator of this sort is categorically unacceptable, especially when his report conflicts with established teachings.

Note: Sayf’s name occurs frequently in the histories of Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Kathīr, and others. Students of history must therefore remain alert to his actual standing, lest they accord those reports a credibility they do not deserve.

Similarly discredited is Luṭ ibn Yaḥyā, known as Abū Mikhnaf. Al-Dhahabī states in al-Mīzān: “A chronicler of no worth; he is not to be trusted. Abū Ḥātim and others abandoned him. Al-Dāraqutnī declared him weak. Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said: he is unreliable. Ibn ʿAdī described him as an extreme Shīʿī devoted to their reports.”