—who was blind—came to the Prophet, saying, “Pray to Allah that He grant me well-being.” The Prophet replied, “If you wish, I will supplicate for you; and if you wish, you may postpone this, for that is better.” In another wording he said, “If you prefer to show patience, that is better for you.” The man said, “Please supplicate.” So the Prophet instructed him to perform ablution, perfect it, pray two rakʿahs, and then make the following supplication:
“O Allah, I ask You and turn to You through Your Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy. O Muhammad, I have turned with you to my Lord concerning this need of mine—let it be fulfilled. O Allah, accept his intercession for me and accept my intercession for him.”
The man did so and was cured.1
The dissenters maintain that this ḥadith proves the permissibility of tawassul in supplication
(1) Ahmad included the report in his Musnad (4/138), and it was also transmitted by al-Tirmidhi (4/281-282), Ibn Majah (1/418), al-Tabarani in al-Muʿjam al-Kabir (3/2/2), and al-Hakim (1/313), all through the route of ʿUthman ibn ʿUmar—Ahmad’s own shaykh in this chain—who related that Shuʿbah heard Abu Jaʿfar al-Madani say: “I heard ʿImarah ibn Khuzaymah narrate it from ʿUthman ….”
Al-Tirmidhi graded the hadith “hasan sahih gharib,” and Ibn Majah follows it with the remark: “Abu Ishaq said: it is a sahih hadith.” Ahmad later narrated it again, saying, “Shuʿbah related it to us,” and in another version Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar joined him with the same wording. Al-Hakim (1/519) also recorded it and declared its isnad sahih, a judgment endorsed by al-Dhahabi.
Some, however—such as the authors of Siyanat al-Insan and Tathir al-Janan, p. 37—have criticized the chain because it contains “Abu Jaʿfar.” Al-Tirmidhi remarked: “We do not know it except through this path, from Abu Jaʿfar, and he is not al-Khutmi.” On that basis they assumed the narrator must be Abu Jaʿfar al-Razi, who is trustworthy (saduq) but has a poor memory.
I contend that this objection is unfounded: the correct identification is Abu Jaʿfar al-Khutmi himself. Ahmad explicitly attributes the report to him in Musnad (4/138) and elsewhere names him “Abu Jaʿfar al-Madani.” The same reading appears in al-Tabarani’s al-Muʿjam al-Saghir, in al-Hakim, and in the Bulaq edition of Sunan al-Tirmidhi. Conclusively, this very al-Khutmi is known to narrate from ʿImarah ibn Khuzaymah and to be narrated from by Shuʿbah, exactly as occurs here, and he is reliable. Accordingly, the isnad is sound and free of any real defect.