Your Prophet. Here are our hands raised to You burdened with sin, and our forelocks submitted to You in repentance. So bless us with rain.’ He said: ‘The sky then poured down torrents as massive as mountains until the earth turned verdant and the people flourished.’

From this ḥadīth we learn the following:

First: The petition was made through the supplication of al-ʿAbbās—may Allah be pleased with him—not through his mere person, as al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār and others have pointed out. This is an explicit rebuttal of those who claim that ʿUmar’s tawassul was through the person of al-ʿAbbās rather than his prayer, for had it been the former there would have been no need for al-ʿAbbās to rise and pronounce a fresh supplication after ʿUmar.

Second: ʿUmar declared that in the Prophet’s lifetime they used to seek rain through our Prophet ﷺ, whereas on this occasion he sought it through the Prophet’s uncle, al-ʿAbbās. It is beyond doubt that the two forms of tawassul are of a single kind: their tawassul through the Messenger ﷺ and their tawassul through al-ʿAbbās. Once the reader—by the evidence to come—realizes that their tawassul through him ﷺ was in fact through his supplication, it necessarily follows that their tawassul through al-ʿAbbās was likewise through his supplication, since both are of the same nature.

As for the proof that their tawassul through him ﷺ was indeed through his supplication, the decisive evidence lies in the explicit wording preserved by al-Ismāʿīlī in his Mustakhraj on the Ṣaḥīḥ. He reports: ‘Whenever they suffered drought during the Prophet’s time, they would seek rain through him, so he would supplicate for them and they would be given rain. When the era of ʿUmar’s governorship arrived…’ and he then relates the rest of the incident. I have quoted this from Fatḥ al-Bārī, 2/399. The phrase ‘so he would supplicate for them’ is explicit that he ﷺ would petition Allah on their behalf.