Istisqāʾ belongs to the morphological pattern istifʿāl and denotes requesting suqyā—that is, asking that rain be sent down for land and people. In Arabic one says: “May Allah give His servants rain (saqā Allāhu ʿibādahū al-ghayth) and provide them with it (asqāhum).” The noun is suqyā (with ḍamma on the s), and you say istaqaytu fulānan when you ask someone to give you water.

With this clarified, the phrase in the present narration, “istisqāʾū bihi” (they sought rain through him), can only mean “through his supplication,” exactly as the wording in the first narration—“we used to beseech You through our Prophet”—means “through his supplication.” Taken together, the two reports allow no other understanding, and this interpretation is further supported by additional evidence.

Third: Had ʿUmar’s tawassul rested on the sheer person of al-ʿAbbās or on his status before Allah, ʿUmar would never have abandoned tawassul through the Prophet ﷺ in that very sense, for such a form would still have been possible after the Prophet’s death if it were in fact prescribed. His deliberate shift to seeking rain by the prayer of al-ʿAbbās—may Allah be pleased with him—is therefore the strongest proof that neither ʿUmar nor the Companions with him regarded tawassul through the Prophet’s person as legitimate. The generations after them followed the same practice, as you have seen in the cases of Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān and al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays beseeching Allah through the prayer of Yazīd ibn al-Aswad al-Jurashī, both of which explicitly state his act of supplication.

Could all of these eminent figures have unanimously refrained from tawassul through the Prophet’s person were it permissible—especially when its proponents claim it is superior to seeking Allah through the supplication of al-ʿAbbās and others? By Allah, such a consensus on omission is neither acceptable nor conceivable. On the contrary, this unanimity is one of the clearest proofs that the form of tawassul in question was not deemed lawful by them; they were far above exchanging what is better for what is of lesser worth.

An objection and its reply:
As for the response offered by the author of Miṣbāḥ al-Zujāja fī Fawāʾid Quḍāʾ al-Ḥāja concerning