872 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; my father narrated to us; Abū Muʿāwiyah narrated to us; al-Aʿmash narrated to us, from Mālik, who said:

Al-Rabīʿ ibn Khuthaym used to visit ʿAlqamah every Friday and converse with him. One day he came and said, “Are you not amazed? A man from the People of the Book came in to see me. He said, ‘Do you not observe how often people engage in duʿāʾ (supplication) and how rarely their prayers are answered? Do they know why that is? It is only because Allah—Exalted is He—accepts nothing but the choicest part of supplication.’”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd—who was sitting with them—remarked, “If that man spoke the truth, then ʿAbd Allah indeed said: ‘Allah does not listen to the one who seeks to make his voice heard, nor to the ostentatious, nor to the frivolous, nor to any supplicant—except to the one who calls upon Him with a firm, wholehearted supplication.’”